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THE  BOOK  OF  PITY 

and' OF  DEATH 

%■ 


BY 
PIERRE    LOTI 

iqf  the  French  Academy) 

MEEOAMILE  LTBRAEY, 
NEW  YOBK. 

TBANBLATXS  BT 

T.  P.  O'CONNOR,  M.  P. 


-i-L  •>  J  n  .5  ,>  -^ 


NEW  YORK 
CASSELL  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 

104  &  106  Fourth  Avenuk 


COPTBIGHT,  1892,   BY 

CA8SELL  PUBLISHING  COMPANY. 
AH  rights  reserved. 


TBI  KSBBHON  COKPAKT  PBB|a, 
RAHWAY,  N,  J, 


XTo  /IDp  3Belove&  /IDotber 

I  DEDICATE   TlirS  BOOK,  AND  WITHOCT  FEAB ; 
FOR   HER  CHRISTIAN  FAITH   ALLOWS 
HER    TO    READ    WITH    TRAN- 
QUILLITY EVEN  THE 
MOST  SOMBBB 
THINGS. 


221 781 4 


CONTENTS. 


PAOS 

A  Preliminary  Word  from  the  Author,    .        .  vii 

A  Dream, 1 

The  Sorrow  of  an  Old  Convict,  ....  13 

A  Mangy  Cat, 23 

A  Country  Without  a  Name,        ....  33 

A  Story  of  Two  Cats, 41 

The  Work  at  Pen-Bron, 119 

In  the  Dead  Past, 141 

Some  Fishermen's  Widows, 165 

Aunt  Claire  Leaves  Us, 183 

The  Slaughter  of  an  Ox  at  Sea,        .        .        .  243 

The  Idyl  op  an  Old  Couple,    ....  253 


,y^'-*- 


'H^ 


A   PRELIMINARY   WORD    FROM 
THE  AUTHOR. 

Ah  !  Insense,  qui  crois  que  tu  rCes  pas  moi. 

— Victor  Hugo  :  "  Les  Contemplations." 

This  book  is  more  my  real  self  than  any- 
thing I  have  yet  written.  It  contains  one 
chapter  (the  Ninth,  which  is  between  page 
185  and  page  242)  that  I  have  never  al- 
lowed to  appear  in  any  magazine  lest  it 
should  fall  under  the  eyes  of  certain  peo- 
ple without  my  being  able  to  give  them  a 
forewarning.  My  first  inclination  was  not 
to  publish  this  chapter  at  all.  But  I 
thought  of  the  friends  I  have  who  are 
unknown  to  me;  one  response  from  their 
distant  sympathy  I  would  regard  as  too 
much  to  give  up.  And  then  I  have  always 
the  feeling  that  in  time  and  space  I  extend 
a  little  the  limits  of  my  own  soul  by  ming- 


viii  A    WORD  FROM  THE  AUTHOR. 

ling  it  witli  theirs.  A  few  moments  and  I 
shall  have  passed  away ;  and  then,  per- 
haps, these  brethren  will  preserve  the  life 
of  the  images  dear  to  me  which  I  have 
graven   on   their   memories. 

This  craving  to  struggle  against  death, 
besides — next  to  the  desire  of  doing  some- 
thing of  which  one  believes  one's  self  cap- 
able— is  the  sole  spiritual  reason  one  has 
for  writing  at  all. 

Among  those  who  profess  to  study  the 
works  of  their  neighbors,  there  is  a  goodly 
number  with  whom  I  have  nothing  in 
common,  either  in  my  language  or  my 
ideas.  I  am  less  than  ever  capable  of 
feeling  irritation  against  them,  so  much  do 
I  allow,  before  judging  other  men,  for  dif- 
ferences either  natural  or  acquired. 

But  this  is  the  first  time  their  sarcasm 
has  the  power  to  wound  me,  if  it  should 
ever  reach  me,  for  it  would  wound  at  the 
same  time  things  and  beings  that  are 
sacred  to  me.  I  certainly  give  them  their 
chance  by  publishing  this  book.     To  them, 


A   WORD  FROM  THE  AUTHOR.  ix 

then,  I  desire  to  say  just  here :  "  Do  me 
the  favor  not  to  read  it ;  it  contains  noth- 
ing for  you ;  and  it  will  bore  you  so  much, 
if  you  only  knew." 

PiEKRE  Lon. 


A  DREAM. 


SOLD  BY  THE 

-tlEECAKTILE  LIBEAEY, 
KKW  YOHK. 


A  DREAM. 

I  WOULD  I  knew  a  language  apart  in 
which  I  could  write  the  visions  of  my 
sleep.  When  I  try  to  do  so  with  ordinary 
words  I  only  succeed  in  constructing  a 
description  that  is  clumsy  and  dull,  in 
which  my  readers  can  see  nothing.  I 
am  alone  able  to  perceive  behind  the 
cloud  of  accumulated  words  the  unfathom- 
able abyss. 

Dreams,  even  those  which  seem  to  us  the 
longest,  have,  it  appears,  a  scarcely  appre- 
ciable duration — no  more  than  those  fugi- 
tive moments  in  which  the  spirit  floats  be- 
tween waking  and  sleep.  But  we  are  de- 
ceived by  the  extraordinary  rapidity  with 
which  their  mirages  succeed  and  change; 
and  having  seen  so  many  things  pass  be- 
fore us  we  say  :  "  I  have  dreamt  the  whole 


2  THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

night    througli,"  when  perhaps    we   have 
dreamt  for  barely  one  minute. 

The  vision  which  I  am  about  to  describe 
did  not  really  last  in  all  probability  for 
more  than  a  few  seconds,  for  even  to  my- 
self it  appeared  very  brief. 

The  first  faint  picture  defined  itself  two 
or  three  times  by  stages  like  the  flame  of  a 
lamp  that  is  raised  by  slight  jerks  behind 
something  transparent. 

At  first  there  was  a  long,  wavering  light, 
drawing  to  it  the  attention  of  my  soul  as  it 
emerged  from  deep  sleep,  from  night,  and 
from  non-existence. 

The  light  becomes  a  beam  of  the  sun, 
which  enters  by  an  open  window  and 
spreads  over  the  floor.  At  the  same  time, 
my  soul  growing  more  excited,  suddenly  is 
disquieted ;  a  vague  reminiscence  of  I 
know  not  what,  a  rapid  presentiment, 
rushes  upon  me.  like  a  flash  of  lightning,  of 
something  which  must  move  me  to  the 
very  depths  of  my  soul. 


A  DREAM.  8 

Then  tlie  scene  becomes  more  defined. 
It  is  the  ray  of  the  evening  sun  that  comes 
from  a  garden  into  which  the  window 
looks — an  exotic  garden  where,  ^vithout 
seeing  them,  I  know  there  are  mango 
trees.  In  the  sunlight  that  lies  across  the 
floor  is  reflected  the  shado\v  of  a  plant 
which  is  in  the  garden  outside  and 
trembles  gently — the  shadow  of  a  banana 
tree. 

And  now  the  parts,  which  were  com- 
paratively dark,  become  clear ;  in  the  semi- 
light  the  different  objects  become  distinct, 
and  at  last  I  see  everything  with  an  inde- 
scribable shudder. 

Yet  there  is  nothing  there  but  the  most 
simple  things  :  a  small  colonial  room,  with 
walls  of  wood  and  chairs  of  straw:  on  a 
console  table  a  clock  of  the  time  of  Louis 
the  Fifteenth,  whose  pendulum  ticks  imper- 
ce})tibly.  But  I  have  already  seen  all  this, 
though  I  am  conscious  of  being  unable  to 
recollect  where,  and  I  am  shaken  with  an. 
guish  before  this  dark  veil  whict  is  spread 


4  TUB  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

across  at  a  certain  point  in  my  memory,  im- 
peding the  looks  I  would  plunge  beyond 
into  some  abyss  more  profound. 

It  is  evening,  and  the  golden  light  is 
about  to  disappear,  and  the  hands  of  the 
Louis  Fifteenth  clock  point  to  six — six 
o'clock,  on  what  day  forever  lost  in  the 
eternal  gulf  ?  on  what  day,  in  what  year, 
now  remote  and  dead  ? 

Those  chairs  have  also  an  antique  look. 
On  one  of  them  is  laid  a  woman's  large 
hat,  white  straw,  and  of  a  shape  which  was 
in  vogue  more  than  a  hundred  years  ago. 
My  eyes  are  at  once  attracted  to  it,  and 
then  again  the  indescribable  shudder, 
stronger  now  than  before.  The  light  be- 
comes lower  and  lower,  and  now  it  is 
scarcely  even  the  dim  illumination  of  ordi- 
nary dreams.  I  do  not  know,  I  cannot  say 
how  it  is,  and  yet  I  feel  that  at  one  time  I 
was  familiar  with  ever^^thing  in  this  house 
and  with  the  life  that  was  led  there — this 
life,  more  melancholy  and  more  remote  in 
the  Colonies  of  former  days,  when  the  dis- 


A  DREAM.  5 

tances  were  greater,  and  tlie  seas  more  un- 
known. 

And  while  I  gaze  at  this  woman's  hat, 
which  gradually  becomes  dimmer  and 
dimmer,  like  everything  else  which  is 
there  in  the  gray  twilight,  the  reflection 
comes  to  me,  though  evidently  it  sprung  in 
another  brain  than  mine,  "  Oh,  then  She 
has  come  in." 

And,  in  fact.  She  does  appear.  She 
stands  behind  me  without  my  having  heard 
her  enter — She  remains  in  that  dark  space 
in  the  room  to  which  the  reflection  of  the 
sun  does  not  penetrate ;  She — very  vague, 
like  a  sketch,  drawn  in  dead  colors  and 
gray  shadows. 

She — very  young,  a  Creole,  bare-headed, 
her  black  curls  arranged  around  her  brow 
in  a  manner  long  since  out  of  date :  eyes, 
beautiful  and  limpid,  that  seemingly  long  to 
speak  to  me,  with  a  mixture  in  them  of 
sad  apprehension  and  infantine  candor: 
perhaps  not  absolutely  beautiful,  still  su- 
premely charming   ....  and  then,  above 


6  THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

all  things,  it  is  She — a  word  which  in  it- 
self  is  exquisitely  sweet  to  pronounce,  a 
word  which,  taken  in  the  sense  in  which 
I  understand  it,  embraces  in  it  every 
reason  for  existence,  expresses  almost  the 
ineffable  and  the  infinite.  To  say  that  I 
recognized  her  would  be  an  expression 
miserably  commonplace  and  miserably 
weak.  There  was  something  which  made 
all  my  being  rush  toward  her,  moved  by 
some  profound  and  irresistible  attraction, 
as  if  to  seize  hold  of  her,  and. this  impulse- 
at  the  same  time  had  something  about  it 
restrained  and  repressed,  as  though  it  were 
an  impossible  effort  by  someone  to  regain 
his  lost  breath  and  his  dead  life  after  years 
and  years  passed  under  the  mound  of  a 
grave. 

Usually  a  veiy  strong  emotion  in  a 
dream  breaks  it's  impalpable  threads  and 
all  is  over.  You  awake ;  the  fragile  web, 
once  broken,  floats  an  instant,  and  then 
vanishes  the  more  quickly  the  more  eagerly 


A  DREAM.  7 

the  mind  strives  to  retain  it;  disappears 
like  a  torn  veil  which  one  pursues  into 
the  void,  and  \\  hich  the  wind  carries  away 
to  inaccessible  distances. 

But  no ;  this  time  I  Avoke  not,  and  the 
dream  continued  even  while  it  was  being 
effaced,  lasted  on  still  while  gradually  fading 
away. 

A  moment  we  remained  one  opposite 
the  other,  stupefied,  in  the  very  ecstacy 
of  our  remembrance,  by  some  indefinable 
and  somber  inertia;  mthout  voices  to 
speak,  and  almost  without  thought ;  ex- 
changing our  phantom  looks  with  astonish- 
ment and  a  delicious  anguish Then 

our  eyes  were  veiled  and  we  became  fonns 
still  vaguer,  performing  insignificant  and 
involuntaiy  actions.  The  light  became 
dimmer,  ever  dimmer,  and  soon  we  saw  al- 
most nothino".  She  went  outside  and  I 
followed  her  into  a  kind  of  drawing-room 
with  white  walls,  vast  and  scantily  fur- 
nished vnth  simple  things,  as  was  the 
custom  in  the  dwellings  of  the  planters. 


8  THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

Another  woman's  shadow  awaited  us 
there,  clothed  in  the  Creole  dress — an 
elderly  woman  whom  I  recognized  almost 
immediately,  and  who  resembled  her, 
doubtless  her  mother.  She  arose  at  our 
approach,  and  we  all  three  went  out  to- 
gether, without  previous  arrangement,  as 
if  obeying  a  habit.  ....  Good  Heavens! 
What  an  accumulation  of  words  and  of 
prolix  phrases  to  explain  awkwardly  all 
that  thus  passed — passed  without  duration 
and  without  noise,  between  personages 
transparent  as  rays,  moving  without  life  in 
a  darkness  that  ever  increased,  ever  became 
more  colorless,  and  ever  dimmer  than  that 
of  night. 

We  all  three  went  out  together  in  the 
twilight  into  a  sad  little  street,  ah !  so  sad 
— with  small,  low  colonial  houses  on  each 
side  under  large  trees ;  at  the  end,  the  sea,* 
vaguely  defined;  over  it  all,  a  suggestion 
of  expatriation,  of  distant  exil»,  something 
like  what  one  would  have  felt  in  the  last 
century  in  the  streets  of  Martinique  or  of 


A  DREAM.  9 

La  Reunion,  but  without  tlie  full  light  of 
day;  everything  seen  in  that  twilight 
where  dwell  the  dead.  Large  birds 
wheeled  in  the  dark  sky,  but,  in  spite  of 
this  darkness,  one  had  the  consciousness  of 
its  being  that  hour,  still  bright,  which  fol- 
lows the  setting  of  the  sun.  Evidently 
we  were  following  an  ordinary  habit.  In 
this  darkness,  which  ever  became  thicker, 
though  it  was  not  the  darkness  of  night, 
we  were  once  again  taking  our  evening 
stroll. 

But  the  clear  impressions  were  no  longer 
visible,  and  there  remained  to  me  nothing 
beyond  a  notion  of  two  specters,  light  and 
sweet,  that  walked  by  my  side,  and  then, 
then  came  nothingness  to  us,  extinguished 
in  the  absolute  night  of  real  sleep. 

I  slept  for  a  long  time  after  this  dream 
— an  hour,  two  hours,  how  long  I  know 
not.  When  I  awoke  and  began  to  think, 
as  soon  as  the  first  recollection  of  what  I 
had  seen  came  back  to  me,  I  experienced 


10       THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

that  kind  of  internal  emotion  whicli  makes 
one  start  and  open  wide  one's  eyes.  In 
my  memory  I  caught  the  vision  first  at  its 
most  intense  moment,  that  in  which  sud- 
denly I  had  thought  of  Her;  that  I  recog- 
nized lier  large  hat  thrown  on  that  chair, 
and  that  she  had  appeared  from  behind  me. 
....  Then  slowly,  little  by  little,  I  rec- 
ollected all  the  rest :  details,  so  precise,  of 
that  room  already  familiar  to  me ;  of  that 
older  lady  whom  I  saw  in  the  shade;  of 
that  walk  in  the  little  dilapidated  street. 
....  Where,  then,  had  I  seen  and  lived 
all  this?  I  sought  rapidly  in  my  past 
with  a  certain  inquietude,  with  an  anxious 
sadness,  believing  it  certain  that  I  should 
find  it  all  there.  .But  no  ;  there  was 
nothing  of  the  kind  anyw^here  in  my  own 
life;  there   was  nothing  to  resemble  it  in 

my  own  experiences 

The  human  head  is  filled  with  innumer- 
able memories,  heaped  up  pell-mell,  like 
the  threads  in  a  tangled  skein.  There  are 
thousands  and  thousands  of  them  hidden 


•     A  DREAM.  11 

in  obscure  corners  whence  they  will  never 
come  forth;  the  mysterious  hand  that 
moves  and  then  puts  them  back  seizes 
sometimes  those  which  are  most  minute 
and  most  illusive,  and  brings  them  back 
for  a  moment  into  the  light  during  those 
intervals  of  calm  that  precede  or  follow 
sleep.  That  which  I  have  just  related  will 
certainly  never  reappear ;  or,  if  it  does  re- 
appear some  other  night,  I  shall  probably 
learn  no  more  as  to  this  woman  and  this 
place  of  exile,  because  in  my  head  there  is 
no  more  that  concerns  them.  It  is  the 
last  fragment  of  a  broken  thread  which 
finished  where  finished  my  dream.  The 
commencement  and  the  end  existed  in 
other  brains  long  since  returned  to  dust. 
Among  my  ancestors  I  had  some  sailors 
whose  lives  and  adventures  are  but  im- 
perfectly known  to  me,  and  there  are  cer- 
tainly— I  know  not  where — in  some  small 
cemetery  in  the  Colonies  some  old  bones 
which  are  the  remains  of  the  young 
woman  with  the  straw  hat  and  the  black 


12       THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

locks.  The  cliarm  whicli  lier  eyes  exer- 
cised over  one  of  my  ancestors  was  suffi- 
ciently powerful  to  project  a  last  mysteri- 
ous reflection  even  unto  me.  I  dreamt  of 
her  the  whole  day  ....  and  with  so 
strange   a  melancholy. 


THE   SOREOW  OF  AN  OLD 
CONVICT. 


THE  SOEROW  OF  AN  OLD 
CONVICT. 

This  is  a  little  story  whicli  was  told  me 
by  Yves.  It  happened  one  evening  when 
he  had  gone  into  the  Roads  to  carry  in  his 
gunboat  a  cargo  of  convicts  to  the  trans- 
port vessel  which  was  to  take  them  to 
New   Caledonia. 

Among  them  was  a  very  old  convict 
(seventy  at  least),  who  carried  with  him 
very  tenderly  a  poor  sparrow  in  a  small 
ca2;e. 

Yves,  to  pass  the  time,  had  entered  into 
conversation  with  this  old  fellow,  who  had 
not,  it  appears,  a  bad  face,  but  who  was 
tied  by  his  chain  to  a  young  gentleman — 
ignoble-looking,  sneering,  with  the  glasses 
of  the  short-sighted  on  a  small  pale  nose. 

An   old   highwayman   arrested  for  the 

15 


16       THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

fifth  or  sixth  time  for  vagabondage  and 
robbery,  he  said  he  was.  "  How  can  a 
man  avoid  stealing  when  he  has  once  com- 
menced, and  when  he  has  no  trade  what- 
ever, and  when  people  won't  have  any- 
thing to  do  with  him  anywhere?  He 
must,  mustn't  he  ?  My  last  sentence  was 
for  a  sack  of  potatoes  which  I  took  in  a 
field  with  a  wagoner's  whip  and  a  pump 
kin.  Mightn't  they  have  allowed  me  to 
die  in  France,  I  ask  you,  instead  of  sending 
me  down  there,  old  as  I  am  ?"....  And 
then,  quite  happy  at  finding  that  some- 
body was  willing  to  listen  to  him  with 
sympathy,  he  showed  to  Yves  his  most 
precious  possession  in  the  world,  the  little 
cage  "and  the  sparrow. 

The  sparrow  was  quite  tame,  and  knew 
his  voice,  and  for  more  than  a  year  had 
lived  with  him  in  his  cell,  perched  on  his 
shoulder.  ....  Ah,  it  was  not  without 
trouble  he  had  obtained  permission  to  take 
it  with  him  to  New  Caledonia,  and  then, 
he  had  besides  to  make  for  it  a  cage  which 


THE  SORROW  OF  AN  OLD  CONVICT.         17 

would  be  suitable  for  the  voyage,  to  pro- 
cure some  wood,  a  little  old  wire,  and  a 
little  green  paint  to  paint  the  whole  and 
make  it  pretty. 

Here  I  recall  the  very  words  of  Yves. 
"  Poor  sparrow !  It  had  for  food  in  its 
cage  a  piece  of  that  gray  bread  which  is 
given  in  prisons,  but  it  had  the  appearance 
of  being  quite  happy,  nevertheless.  It 
jumped   about  just  like  any  other   bird." 

Some  hours  afterward,  when  they 
reached  the  transport  vessel  and  the  con- 
victs were  about  to  embark  for  their  long 
voyage,  Yves,  who  had  forgotten  this  old 
man,  passed  once  more  by  chance  neai'  him. 

"  Here,  take  it,"  said  the  old  man,  with 
a  voice  that  had  altogether  changed,  hold- 
ing out  to  him  his  little  cage,  "  I  give  it  to 
you.  You  may  jDcrhaps  find  some  use  for 
it ;  perhaps  it  may  give  you  pleasure." 

"  Certainly  not,"  replied  Yves.  "  On  the 
contrary,  you  must  take  it  with  you.  It 
will  be  your  little  comrade  down  there." 

"Oh,"  replied   the  old  man,   "A^  is  no 


18        THE  BOOK  OF  FITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

longer  inside.  You  didn't  know  that ;  you 
didn't  hear,  then  !  He  is  no  longer  there," 
and  two  tears  of  indescribable  misery  ran 
down  his  cheeks. 

Through  a  lurch  of  the  vessel  the,  door 
of  the  cage  had  opened  ;  the  sparrow  took 
fright,  flew  out,  and  immediately  fell  into 
the  sea  because  of  its  cut  wing.  Oh,  what  a 
moment  of  horrible  grief  to  see  it  fight  and 
die,  swept  away  by  the  rapid  current,  and  he 
all  the  time  helpless  to  rescue  it.  At  first, 
by  a  natural  impulse,  he  wished  to  cry  out 
for  help  ;  to  address  himself  to  Yves  ;  to  im- 
plore him But  the  impulse  was  im- 
mediately stopped  by  the  recollection  and 
the  consciousness  of  his  personal  degrada- 
tion. An  old  wretch  like  him !  Who 
would  be  ready  to  hear  the  prayer  of  such 
as  he  ?  Could  he  ever  imagine  that  the  ship 
would  be  stopped  to  fish  up  a  drowning 
sparrow — the  poor  bird  of  a  convict  1  The 
idea  was  absurd.  Accordingly  he  re- 
mained silent  in  his  place,  looking  at  the 
little  gray  body  as  it  disappeared  on   the 


THE  SORROW  OF  AN  OLD  CONVICT.         19 

foam  of  the  sea,  struggling  to  the  end.  He 
felt  teriibly  lonely  now,  and  forever,  and 
great  tears  of  solitaiy  and  supreme  despair 
dimmed  his  eyes.  Meantime,  the  young 
gentleman  with  the  eye-glasses,  his  chain- 
fellow,  laughed  to  see  an  old  man  weep. 

Now  that  the  bird  was  no  longer  there, 
he  did  not  wdsh  to  preseive  its  cage,  made 
with  so  much  solicitude  for  the  lonely  dead 
bird.  He  offered  it  to  this  good  soldier  who 
had  condescended  to  listen  to  his  story, 
anxious  to  leave  him  this  legacy  before  de- 
parting for  his  long  and  last  voyage. 

And  Yves  sadly  had  accepted  the 
empty  cage  as  a  present,  so  that  he  might 
not  cause  any  more  pain  to  this  old  aban- 
doned wretch  by  appearing  to  disdain 
this  thing  which  had  cost  him  so  much 
labor. 

I  feel  that  I  have  not  been  able  to  do 
full  justice  to  all  the  sadness  that  there 
was  in  this  story  as  it  was  told  me. 

It  was  evening  and  very  late,  and  I  was 
about  to  go  to  bed.     I,  who  had  in  the 


20       THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

course  of  my  life  seen  with  little  emo- 
tion so  many  loud-sounding  sorrows  and 
dramas  and  deaths,  perceived  with  aston- 
ishment that  the  distress  of  this  old  man 
tore  my  heart,  and  even  threatened  to  dis- 
turb my  sleep. 

"  I  wonder,"  said  I,  "  if  means  could  be 
found  of  sending  him  another  ? " 

"  Yes,"  replied  Yves,  "  I  also  thought  of 
that.  I  thought  of  buying  him  a  beauti- 
ful bird  at  a  bird  dealer's  and  bringing  it 
back  to  him  to-morrow  with  the  little  cage 
if  there  were  time  to  do  so  before  his  de- 
parture. It  would  be  a  little  difficult. 
Moreover,  you  are  the  only  person  who 
could  go  into  the  Roads  to-morrow  and  go 
on  board  the  transport  to  find  out  this  old 
man ;  and  I  do  not  even  know  his  name. 
And,  then,  would  not  people  think  it  very 
odd?" 

•  "Ah,  yes,  certainly.  As  to  its  being 
thought  odd,  there  cannot  be  any  mistake 
about  that."  And  for  a  moment  I  dwelt 
with  pleasure  upon  the  idea,  laughing  that 


THE  SORROW  OF  AN  OLD  CONVICT.         21 

good  inner    laugh  which  scarcely  appears 
upon  the   surface. 

However,  I  did  not  follow  up  the  pro- 
ject, and  the  following  morning  when  I 
awoke,  and  with  the  first  impression  gone, 
the  thing  aj^peared  to  me  childish  and 
ridiculous.  This  disappointment  was  not 
one  of  those  which  a  mere  plaything  could 
console.  The  poor  old  convict,  all  alone 
in  the  world — the  most  beautiful  bird  in 
Paradise  would  never  replace  for  him  the 
humble  gray  little  sparrow  with  cut  wing, 
reared  on  prison  bread,  who  had  been  able 
to  awake  once  more  in  him  a  tenderness 
infinitely  sweet,  and  to  draw  tears  from  a 
heart  that  was  hardened  and  half-dead. 
Rochester,  December,  1889. 


A  MANGY  CAT. 


A  MANGY  CAT. 

An  old  mangy  cat,  hunted  out  of  its 
abode  no  doubt  by  its  owners,  had  estab- 
lished itself  in  our  street,  on  the  footpath 
of  our  house,  where  a  little  November 
sun  once  more  w^arraed  its  body.  It  is  the 
custom  with  certain  jieople  whose  pity  is  a 
selfish  pity  thus  to  send  off,  as  far  away  as 
possible,  and  "  lose"  the  poor  animals  they 
care  neither  to   tend   nor   to   see   suffer. 

All  day  long  it  would  sit  piteously  in 
the  corner  of  a  window  sill,  looking,  oh  !  so 
unhappy  and  so  humble,  an  object  of  dis- 
gust to  those  who  passed,  menaced  by 
children  and  by  dogs,  in  continual  danger, 
and  sickenino;  from  hour  to  hour.  It  lived 
on  offal,  picked  up  with  great  difficulty  in 
the  streets,  and  there  it  sat  all  alone,  drag- 
ging out  its  existence  as  it  could,  striving  to 

25 


26       THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

ward  off  death.  Its  poor  head  was  eaten 
up  with  disease,  covered  with  sores,  and 
almost  without  fur,  but  its  eyes,  which  re- 
mained bright,  seemed  to  reflect  profoundly. 
It  must  have  felt  in  its  frightful  bitterness 
the  worst  of  all  sufferings  to  a  cat — that 
of  not  being  able  to  make  its  toilet,  to  lick 
its  fur,  and  to  comb  itself  with  the  care 
cats   always   bestow   on   this   operation. 

To  make  its  toilet!  I  believe  that  to 
beast,  as  to  man,  this  is  one  of  the  most 
necessary  distractions  of  life.  The  poorest, 
the  most  diseased,  and  the  most  decrepit 
animals  at  certain  hours  dress  tliemselves 
up,  and,  as  long  as  they  are  able  to  find 
time  to  do  that,  have  not  lost  everything  in 
life.  But  to  be  no  longer  able  to  care  for 
their  appearance  because  nothing  can  be 
done  before  the  final  moldering  away, 
that  has  always  appeared  to  me  the  lowest 
depth  of  all  the  supreme  agony.  Alas  for 
those  poor  old  beggars  who  before  death 
have  mud  and  filth  on  their  faces,  their 
bodies  scarred  with  wounds  that  no  longer 


A  MANGY  CAT.  27 

can  be  dressed,  tlie  poor  diseased  animals 
for  whom  there  is  no  longer  even  pity. 

It  gave  me  so  much  misery  to  look  at 
this  forsaken  cat  that  I  first  sent  it  some- 
thing to  eat  in  the  street,  and  then  I 
approached  it  and  spoke  to  it  softly 
(animals  very  soon  learn  to  understand 
kind  actions  and  find  consolation  in  them). 
Accustomed  to  be  hunted,  it  was  first 
frightened  at  seeing  me  stop  before  it.  Its 
first  look  was  suspicious,  filled  with  re- 
proach and  supplication.  "  Are  you  also 
going  to  drive  me  away  from  this  last 
sunny  corner  ? "  And  then  quickly  per- 
ceiving that  I  had  come  from  sympathy, 
and  astonished  at  so  much  kindness,  it  ad- 
dressed to  me  very  softly  its  poor  cat's  an- 
swer, "Pit!  Prr!  Prr  !"  rising  out  of  po- 
liteness, and  attempting  to  lift  its  back,  in 
spite  of  its  weariness,  and  in  hopes  that 
pcx'haps  I  would  go  as  far  as  a  caress. 

No,  my  pity,  even  though  I  was  the  only 
body  in  the  world  that  felt  any  for  it,  did 
not  go  this  length.     That  happiness  of  be- 


28        THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

ing  caressed  it  would  never  know  again,  but 
as  a  compensation  I  imagined  tliat  I  might 
give  it  death — immediately,  with  my  own 
hand,  and   in   a   manner   almost   pleasant. 

An  hour  afterward  this  was  done  in  the 
stable.  Sylvester,  my  servant,  who  had 
first  gone  and  bought  some  chloroform, 
had  attracted  the  cat  in  quietly,  induced  it 
to  lie  down  on  the  hot  hay  at  the  bottom 
of  a  wicker  basket,  which  was  to  be  its 
mortuary  chamber.  Our  preparations  did 
not  disquiet  it.  We  had  rolled  a  carte-de- 
visite  in  the  shape  of  a  cone,  as  we  had 
seen  the  surgeons  do  in  the  ambulance. 
The  cat  looked  at  us  with  a  confiding  and 
happy  air,  having  thought  at  last  it  had 
found  a  home,  people  who  would  take 
compassion  on  it,  new  masters  who  would 
heal  it. 

Meantime,  and  in  spite  of  my  dread  of 
its  disease,  I  leaned  down  to  caress  it,  hav- 
ing already  received  from  the  hands  of 
Sylvester  the  paste-board  cup  all  covered 
with  poison.     While  caressing  it  I  tried  to 


A  MANGY  GAT.  29 

induce  it  to  remain  quiet  ttere,  to  push 
little  by  little  the  end  of  his  nose  into  the 
narcotized  cup.  A  little  surprised  at  first, 
sniffinc:  with  vao;ue  terror  at  this  unaccus- 
tomed  smell,  it  ended  by  doing  as  it  was 
asked  with  such  submission  that  I  almost 
hesitated  to  continue  my  work.  The  anni- 
hilation of  a  thinking  animal,  even  though 
it  be  not  a  human  being,  has  in  it  some- 
thing: to  duinfound  us.  AVhen  one  thinks 
of  it,  it  is  always  the  same  revolting  mys- 
tery, and  death  besides  carries  with  it  so 
much  majesty,  that  it  has  the  jiower  of 
giving  sublimity  in  an  unexpected,  exag- 
gerated form  to  the  most  infinitesimal  scene 
from  the  instant  its  shadow  appears.  At 
this  moment  I  appeared  to  myself  like 
some  black  magician,  arrogating  to  myself 
the  right  of  bringing  to  the  suffering  what 
I  believod  to  be  supreme  peace,  the  right  of 
opening  to  those  w^ho  had  not  demanded  it 
the  gates  of  the  great  night. 

Once  it  lifted  its  poor  head,  almost  life- 
less, to  look  at  me  fixedly.     Our  eyes  met 


30       TEE  BOOf  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

— his,  questioning,  expressive,  asking  me 
with  an  extreme  intensity,  "  What  are  you 
doing  to  me,  you  to  whom  I  confided  my- 
self, and  whom  I  know  so  little  ?  What 
are  you  doing  to  me  ? "  And  I  still  hesi- 
tated, but  its  neck  fell ;  its  poor  disgust- 
ing head  now  supported  itself  on  my  hand, 
which  I  did  not  withdraw.  A  torpor  in- 
vaded it  in  spite  of  itself,  and  I  hoped  it 
would  not  look  at  me  again. 

But  it  did,  one  other  last  time.  Cats,  as 
the  poor  people  say,  have  their  souls 
pinned  to  their  bodies.  In  a  last  spasm  of 
life,  it  looked  at  me  again  across  the  half 
sleep  of  death.  It  seemed  even  to  all  at 
once  comprehend  everything.  "  Ah,  then 
it  was   to    kill   me    and    not   assist   me : 

I    allow  it   to   be   done It  is   too 

late I  am   falling    asleep." 

In  fact,  I  was  afraid  that  I  had  done 
wrong.  In  this  world  in  which  we  know 
nothing  of  anything,  men  are  not  allowed 
to  even  pity  intelligently.  Thus,  its  look, 
infinitely  sad,  even  while  it  descended  into 


A  MANGY  CAT.  31 

the  petrifaction  of  death,  continued  to 
pursue  me  as  with  a  reproach.  "  Why  did 
you  interfere  with  my  destiny?  I  might 
have  been  able  to  drag  along  for  a  time; 
to  have  had  still  some  little  thouerhts  for 
at  least  another  week.  There  remained  to 
me  sufficient  strength  to  leap  on  the  win- 
dow sill  where  the  dogs  could  no  more 
torment  me,  where  I  was  not  cold.  In  the 
morning,  when  the  sun  came  there,  I  had 
some  moments  which  were  not  unbearable, 
looking  at  the  movement  of  life  around  me, 
interested  in  the  coming  and  going  of 
other  cats,'  conscious  at  least  of  something ; 
while  now,  I  am  about  to  decompose  and 
be  transformed  into  I  know  not  what,  that 
will  not  remembei.  Soon  I  shall  no 
longer   bey 

I  should  have  recollected,  in  fact,  that 
even  the  meanest  of  things  love  to  pro- 
long their  life  by  every  means,  even  to  its 
utmost  limits  of  misery,  prefening  any- 
thing to  the  terror  of  being  nothing,  of  no 
longer  being. 


32       THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

When  I  came  back  in  the  evening  to  see 
it  again  I  found  it  stiff  and  cold,  in  tlie 
attitude  of  sleep  in  whicli  I  had  left  it. 
Then  I  told  Sylvester  to  close  the  mor- 
tuaiy  basket,  to  carry  it  away  far  from 
the  city,  and  throw  it  away  in  the  fields. 


A  COUNTRY  WITHOUT  A 
NAME. 


A  COUNTRY  WITHOUT  K 
NAME. 

Here  is  a  vision  which  came  to  me  one 
April  night  while  I  slept  in  a  tent  in  an 
encampment  among  the  Bani-Hassen  in 
Morocco,  at  about  three  days'  march  from 
the  holy  city  of  Mequinez. 

The  curtain  of  the  dream  rose  abruptly 
on  a  remote  country — oh  !  so  remote — far 
more  I'emote  than  the  usual  earthly  dis- 
tances, so  that  as  soon  as  the  scene  began 
to  dimly  unveil  itself — even  before  I  could 
see  it  well — I  myself  had  a  sense  of  this 
terrible  remoteness.  It  was  a  plain,  rugged, 
bare  desert,  where  it  was  terribly  hot  and 
dark,  under  a  mournful  twilight  sky.  It 
had,  however,  nothing  unique  in  its  ap- 
pearance, as,  for  example,  certain  plains  in 
C^tttral  Africa  which  seem  insignificant  m 


36        THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

themselves,  but  have  a  certain  distinctive 
character,  and  which  nevertheless  are  dif- 
ficult and  dangerous  of  access.  If  I  had 
known  nothing  pf  the  place,  I  might  have 
believed  myself  anywhere;  but  I  had  a 
knowledge  of  the  country,  a  sort  of  immedi- 
ate intuition,  and  therefore  it  oppressed  me 
to  be  there,  for  I  felt  myself  annihilated  by 
these  endless  distances,  by  the  anguish  of 
infinite  journeys  fi-om  which  there  was  no 
return. 

On  this  plain,  small  stunted  trees  arose 
whose  black  branches  were  twisted  back  on 
each  other  by  a  series  of  rectangular  frac- 
tures, like  the  arms  of  Chinese  armchairs. 
They  had  each  only  three  or  four  leaves  of 
a  soft  green,  which  hung  as  though  ex- 
hausted by  the  heat. 

I  had  a  sense  that  fi'om  one  moment  to 
another  sinister  spiiits,  animals,  perils, 
might  arise  from  every  point  on  this  dim 
horizon,  misty  with  stagnant  clouds  of 
darkness.  One  of  the  imaginary  compan- 
ions of  my  journey — I  must  have  had  at 


A  COUNTRY  WITHOUT  A  NAME.  37 

least  two,  whose  presence  I  felt,  but  who 
were  invisible  spirits,  voices.  One  of  my 
companions  whispered  in  my  ear,  "Ah, 
now  that  we  ai'e  here,  you  must  beware 
of  the  dogs  with  dawsP  "  Ah,  quite  so,"  I 
said,  with  a  careless  air,  as  though  I  were 
quite  familiar  \Wth  this  kind  of  animal  and 
with  the  danger  they  threatened.  Clearly 
I  had  been  there  already,  and  yet  these 
dogs  with  datvs,  their  image  suddenly  re- 
called to.  my  spirit,  and  accentuating  still 
more  the  notion  of  this  remote  expatriation, 
made  me  tremble. 

They  appeared  immediately,  called  forth 
by  the  single  mention  of  their  name,  and 
with  that  astonishing  facility  with  which 
things  pass  in  dreams.  They  ran  more 
quickly  across  the  shadow  of  this  dark  twi- 
light— shot  forth  like  ari'ows  or  bullets,  so 
that  one  had  not  time  to  see  them  approach 
— frightful  black  dogs,  with  nails  like  cats 
— claw^s  that  seemed  to  scratch  viciously  as 
they  pattered  swiftly  along  and  lost  them- 
selves in  the  confused  distance. 


38        THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

There  also  passed  little  women,  almost 
dwarfs,  giggling,  mocking  half-monkeys  (in 
real  life  I  had  met  two  like  them  in  the 
midst  of  an  African  desert,  devoured  by 
the  sun,  under  the  oppression  of  a  black 
sky,  and  in  the  environs  of  Obock).  These 
women,  doubtless,  had  claws  like  the  dogs, 
for  as  they  passed  me  they  clawed  in  the 
same  way.  Then  their  breatk  also  gave 
the  suggestion  of  a  "  claw  "  ;  for,  when  they 
breathed  in  my  face,  it  pricked  like  the 
points  of  needles. 

Human  words  cannot  describe  tbe  real 
heart  of  this  vision — the  mystery  and  the 
sadness  of  this  plain  which  thus  reap- 
peared ;  all  that  rose  up  in  me  of  disquie- 
tude and  desolation  in  merely  looking  at 
those  wretched  little  trees,  with  their  long 
leaves  withered  by  the  heat.  When  I 
woke  up  the  timid  dawn  was  just  begin- 
ning to  penetrate  through  the  canvas  of 
my  tent,  and  the  notion  came  back  to  me 
gradually  and  slowly  of  real  life — of 
Africa^  of  Morocco^  of  the  Beni-Hassen,  of 


A  COUNTRY  WITHOUT  A  NAME.  39 

our  little  encampment  in  the  midst  of  tlie 
widely  stretching  desert  pasturages.  Then 
I  regained  suddenly  a  pleasant  impression 
of  home,  of  unexpected  return.  And,  good 
Heavens  !  how  many  people  are  there  who 
will  smile  at  my  dread  of  these  little  women 
with  claws,  who,  in  my  place,  would  be 
considerably  alarmed  by  these  uncertain 
tribes  around  him,  by  these  long  journeys 
from  station  to  station,  under  a  hot  sun, 
without  roads  over  the  mountains,  and  with- 
out bridges  over  the  streams  ?  As  for  me, 
the  territory  of  the  Beni-Hassen  appeared 
comparable  to  the  tamest  suburb  of  Paris  in 
comparison  with  that  country  belonging  to 
I  know  not  what  planet,  going  whence  I 
know  not,  and  seen  during  the  unfathom- 
able infinities  of  time  and  of  space  in  the 
inexplicable  second-sight  of  dreams. 


A  STORY  OF  TWO   CATS. 


A  STORY  OF  TWO   CATS. 

{Far  my  son  Samuel,  when  lie  has  learned 
to  read.) 


I  HAVE  often  seen,  with  an  infinitely  sad 
disquietude,  the  soul  of  animals  appear  in 
tlie  depths  of  their  eyes.  I  have  seen  the 
soul  of  a  cat,  the  soul  of  a  dog,  the  soul  of 
a  monkey  reveal  itself  suddenly  for  a 
moment  as  sad  as  a  human  soul,  and  seai'ch 
for  my  soul  with  tenderness,  supplication, 
or  terror ;  and  I  have  perhaps  felt  a  deeper 
jjity  for  the  souls  of  animals  than  for  those 
of  my  brothers,  because  they  are  without 
speech  and  incapable  of  coming  forth  from 
their  seminight,  especially  when  they  be- 
long to  the  humblest  and  most  despised  of 
their  kind. 

43 


44        TEE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 
II. 

The  two  cats  whose  story  I  am  about  to 
tell  are  associated  in  my  memory  with 
some  of  the  years  of  my  life  which  were 
comparatively  happy.  Ah !  they  were 
quite  recent  years  if  you  look  at  them 
with  the  dates  in  your  hand,  but  they  are 
years  which  to  me  appear  already  distant, 
already  remote,  carried  past  me  with  that 
rapidity  of  time  which  becomes  ever  and 
ever  more  terrible — years  that  now  being 
past  look  as  if  they  were  colored  by  the  last 
rays  of  the  da^vn,  with  the  final  rosy  tints 
of  morning  and  of  the  openings  of  life  when 
I  put  them  in  contrast  with  the  gi'ay  hours 
of  to-day.  Thus  quickly  do  our  days  be- 
come darker ;  thus  rapidly  do  we  descend 
toward  everlasting  night. 

in. 

I  must  be  pardoned  for  calling  them 
both  by  the  same  name  of  "  Moumoutte." 
In  the  first  place  I  have  never  had  any 
power  of  imagination  for  coining  names  for 


A  STORY  OF  TWO  CATS.  45 

my  cats.  It  has  always  been  Moumoutte, 
and  the  kittens  always  Mimi ;  and,  indeed, 
for  my  part,  I  do  not  think  there  are  any 
names  which  suit  better,  which  are  more 
cattish  than  those  two  adorable  ones,  Mimi 
and  Moumoutte. 

I  will  then  preserve  to  the  poor  little 
heroines  of  these  stories  the  names  they 
bore  in  real  life — for  the  one  White  Mou- 
moutte, for  the  other  Gray  Moumoutte,  or 
Chinese  Moumoutte. 

IV. 

By  order  of  seniority,  it  is  White  Mou- 
moutte that  I  must  first  introduce.  On 
her  carte-de-visite,  in  fact,  she  had  engraved 
her  title  as  first  cat  in  my  house : 


Madame  Moumoutte  Blanche, 

PremUre  Ghatte 
Chez  M.  Pierre  Loti. 


It  is  almost  ten  years  ago — that  memor- 
able, joyous  evening  on  which  I  saw  her 
for  the  first  time !     It  was  a  winter  even- 


46        TUE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

ing  on  one  of  my  periodic  returns  to  my 
fireside  after  some  campaign  or  other  in 
tlie  East.  I  had  just  arrived  home,  and  I 
was  warming  myself  in  the  large  draw- 
ing-room before  a  wood  fire  between 
mamma  and  Aunt  Claire,  who  wei'e  seated 
at  the  two  corners  of  the  fireplace.  Sud- 
denly something  burst  with  a  jump  into 
the  room  like  a  rocket,  fell,  then  madly 
rolled  itself  on  the  ground,  white  as  snow 
on  the  somber  red  carpet. 

"  Ah,"  said  Aunt  Claire,  "  you  did  not 
know  then  ?  I  must  introduce  her  to  you. 
This  is  our  new  Moumoutte.  What  would 
you  have?  We  had  to  have  another; 
a  mouse  had  found  its  way  right  into  our 
little  room  below." 

There  had  been  in  our  house  a  pretty 
long  interregnum  without  Moumouttes  be- 
cause we  mourned  a  certain  cat  from  Sene- 
gal which  had  been  brought  home  by  me 
after  my  first  campaign,  and,  after  being 
adored  for  two  years,  had,  one  morning  in 
June,  after  a  short  illness,  died  looking  at 


A  STORY  OF  TWO  CATS.  47 

me  witli  an  expression  of  supreme  prayer ; 
I  myself  had  buried  it  at  the  foot  of  a 
tree  in  our  courtyard. 

I  caught  up,  to  see  it  better,  the  beauti- 
ful ball  of  fur  which  spread  so  white  upon 
the  red  carpet.  I  took  her  in  both  hands 
of  course,  for  this  is  a  special  precaution 
which  I  never  omit  in  dealincj  with  cats, 
and  which  seems  to  say  to  them  at  once, 
"  Here  is  a  man  who  understands  us ;  who 
knows  how  to  touch  us ;  who  is  one  of  our 
friends,  and  whose  caresses  one  can  con- 
descend to  receive  with  amiability." 

It  was  very  affable — the  little  phiz  of 
this  new  Moumoutte ;  its  eyes  bright, 
almost  childlike  ;  the  end  of  its  little  nose 
rosy  red,  and  then — nothing  more,  for  the 
remainder  was  lost  in  the  depths  of  an 
Angora  coat,  silky,  clean,  sweet-smelling, 
w^hile  exquisite  to  stroke  and  pet.  More- 
over, it  was  marked  and  spotted  exactly 
like  the  dead  Moumoutte  from  Senegal — 
which  perhaps  was  what  decided  the 
choice  of  mamma  and  Aunt  Claire,  so  that 


48        TEE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

a  slight  confusion  of  the  two  in  my  some- 
wliat  volatile  heart  might  be  brought 
about  in  the  end.  On  her  ears  she  had  a 
very  large  black  bonnet,  fixed  straight, 
and  forming  a  fillet  for  her  bright  eyes. 
A  short  black  pelerine  was  thrown  over 
her  shoulders,  and  finally  she  had  a  splen- 
did black  tail  like  a  superb  plume,  which 
was  agitated  with  the  perpetual  motion  of 
a  fan  to  drive  away  flies.  The  stomach 
and  the  paws  were  as  white  as  the  down 
of  a  swan,  and  altogether  she  gave  you  the 
impression  of  a  .  large  bundle  of  fur,  so 
light  as  to  be  almost  without  weight,  and 
moved  by  a  capricious  little  machinery  of 
nerves  always  on  the  stretch. 

Moumoutte  after  this  examination  ran 
away  from  me  to  begin  once  more  its  play, 
and  in  those  first  moments  after  my  arrival 
— which  were  necessarily  melancholy  be- 
cause they  mark<ed  one  more  stage  in  life 
— the  new  white  cat  with  its  black  spots 
insisted  on  my  taking  notice  of  her,  jump- 
ing on  my  knees  to  bid  me  welcome,  or 


A  STOEY  OF  TWO   CATS.  49 

stretching  herself  on  the  ground  with  an 
affected  lassitude  to  make  me  admire  the 
more  the  whiteness  of  her  stomach  and 
her  silky  neck.  While  this  Moumoutte 
was  thus  gamboling,  my  eyes  rested  with 
devotion  on  the  two  dear  faces  which 
were  smiling  at  me  there,  a  little  aged,  and 
framed  in  locks  a  little  grayer ;  on  the 
family  portraits,  which  preserved  the  same- 
ness of  expression  and  age  in  their  frames 
on  the  wall ;  on  the  objects  so  familial*  and 
in  the  same  places ;  on  the  thousand 
things  of  this  hereditary  home  that  had 
remained  unchanged  also,  while  I  had 
passed  with  a  changed  heart  over  the 
changing  world.  And  this  was  the  pic- 
tm-e,  persistent  and  distinct,  which  was  to 
remind  me  of  her,  even  after  her  death — a 
foolish  little  animal,  white,  unexpected, 
gamboling  on  a  red  ground  between  the 
mourning  dress  of  mamma  and  Aunt 
Claire  on  the  evening  of  one  of  my  great 
home-comings. 

Poor  Moumoutte  during  the  first  winter 


50       TEE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

of  her  life  was  the  familiar  little  demon, 
the  little  household  imp  that  brightened 
the  solitude  of  those  two  blessed  guardians 
of  my  fireside,  mamma  and  Aunt  Claire. 
While  I  was  wandering  on  distant  seas, 
when  the  house  had  become  again  large 
and  empty,  in  the  sad  twilight  of  Decem- 
ber, in  the  long  evenings  without  end,  she 
remained  their  faithful  companion,  tor- 
menting them  now  and  then,  and  leaving 
on  their  irreproachable  black  gowns  tufts 
of  her  white  fur.  Entirely  without  discre- 
tion, she  used  to  install  herself  on  their 
knees,  on  their  worktables,  even  in  their 
workbaskets,  twisting  their  balls  of  cotton 
or  their  skeins  of  silk,  and  then  they 
would  say  with  terrible  looks,  but  almost 
laughing  in  spite  of  themselves,  "  Ah,  that 
cat ;  there  is  no  making  her  behave.  Be 
off  !  Be  off  !  Did  ever  anybody  see  such 
manners?  It  is  too  bad."  There  was 
even  a  whip  expressly  for  her  which  she 
was  occasionally  allowed  to  see.  She  loved 
them  after  her  cat  manner — ^that  is  to  say, 


A  STORY  OF  TWO   CATS.  51 

without  obedience,  but  ANdth  a  touching 
confidence ;  and  if  it  were  only  for  this, 
her  little  soul,  incomplete  and  fantastic, 
deserves   that  I  should   remember  her. 

In  the  spring,  when  the  March  sun 
began  to  warm  her  coat,  she  would  ex- 
perience an  ever  novel  surprise — that  of 
seeing  her  comrade  and  fi'iend  Sulima,  the 
tortoise,  wake  up  and  come  out  of  the 
earth.  During  the  beautiful  month  of 
May,  she  would  generally  feel  an  irre- 
sistible desire  for  expansion  and  for  liberty 
enter  into  her  soul,  and  then  there  came 
nocturnal  disappearances  in  the  gardens 
and  on  the  roofs  of  the  neighbors.  In  the 
summer  she  would  have  the  lano-uors  of  a 
Creole.  During  entire  days  she  would 
lie  in  a  stupor  of  comfort  and  of  heat, 
crouched  on  the  old  walls  amone  the 
honeysuckle  and  the  roses,  or  stretched  on 
the  ground,  presenting  to  the  burning  sun 
her  white  stomach  on  the  whit«  stones 
between   the  pots   of  blooming  cactus. 

Extremely  cai-eful  of  her  person  and  at 


62       THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

ordinary  times  sedate,  correct  in  lier  be- 
havior, aristocratic  down  to  tlie  tips  of  her 
nails,  she  was  nevertheless  quite  intractable 
with  other  cats,  and  became  quite  rude  the 
moment  a  visitor  presented  itself  to  her. 
In  the  courtyard,  which  she  considered  as 
her  domain,  she  would  never  allow  a 
stranger  the  right  to  appear ;  if  above  the 
wall  of  a  neighboring  garden  two  ears  or 
the  nose  of  cat  imidl  made  their  ap- 
pearance, or  even  if  aiiything  stirred  in  the 
branches  of  the  ivy,  sh  would  dart  out 
herself  like  a  young  fury,  with  her  fur 
erect  down  to  the  end  of  her  tail,  imj)Ossi- 
ble  to  hold,  and  no  longer  her  usual  self ; 
then  came  cries  in  the  worst  taste,  followed 
by  a  rough  and  tumble  and  the  blows  of 
conflicting  claws. 

To  sum  up,  she  was  fiercely  independent, 
and  she  was  usually  disobedient,  but  she 
was  affectionate  in  her  good  moments, 
so  caressing  and  so  wheedling,  and  she 
uttered  such  a  pretty  little  cry  of  joy 
when  she  retui-ned  among  us  after  one  of 


A  STORY  OF  TWO  CATS.  53 

her  vagabond  excursions  in  the  gardens  of 
the  neighborhood.  She  was  now  about 
five  years  old,  and  she  was  in  all  the  splen- 
dor of  her  Angora  beauty,  with  attitudes 
of  superb  dignity  and  the  airs  of  a  queen. 
I  had  had  time  to  become  attached  to  her 
by  a  series  of  absences  and  returns,  con- 
sidering her  as  one  of  the  things  of  the 
hearth,  as  one  of  the  beings  of  the  house- 
hold, when  there  was  born,  three  thousand 
leagues  from  her  home,  in  the  Gulf  of 
Pekin,  and  of  a  family  more  than  humble, 
she  who  was  to  become  her  inseparable 
friend — the  strangest  little  person  I  have 
ever  known — Chinese  Moumoutte. 


V. 


Madame  Moumoutte  Chinoise, 

Deuocikne  Chatte 
Chez  M.  Piekre  Loti, 


Singular,  indeed,  was  the  destiny  which 
handed  over  to  me  this  Moumoutte  of  a 


54        THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

yellow  race,  and  the  offspring  of  parents  at 
once  poor  and  without  any  title  to  beauty. 

It  was  at  the  end  of  the  war  there,  on 
one  of  those  evenings  of  conflict  which 
were  so  frequent  then.  I  do  not  know 
how  it  was  that  this  little  animal,  escaped 
from  some  junk  in  the  midst  of  disorder, 
had,  after  jumping  aboard  our  vessel  in  its 
terror,  sought  an  asylum  in  my  room  under 
my  bed.  She  was  yellow,  not  yet  of  adult 
figure,  miserable-looking,  emaciated,  plain- 
tive, having  without  doubt,  like  her 
parents  and  her  masters,  lived  sparingly  on 
the  heads  of  fish  with  a  little  rice  cooked 
in  water,  and  I  took  so  much  pity  on  her 
that  I  ordered  my  orderly  to  procure  for 
her  something  to  eat  and  drink. 

With  a  humble  and  grateful  air  she  ac- 
cepted my  kindness,  and  I  can  see  her 
still  as  she  slowly  approached  toward  this 
unexpected  repast,  advancing  first  one  foot 
and  then  the  other,  her  eyes  all  the  time 
fixed  on  mine  to  assure  herself  that  she 
was  not  deceived,  and  that  it  was  really  in- 


A  STORY  OF  TWO  CATS.  55 

tended  for  her.  Next  moming,  of  course, 
I  wanted  to  put  her  out.  After  having  had 
a  fairly  good  breakfast  prepared  for  her,  I 
clapped  my  hands  violently,  stamping  with 
both  my  feet  at  the  same  time  as  is  usual 
in  such  cases,  and  saying,  in  a  very  gruff 
voice,  "Get  out,  little  Moumoutte."  But 
no  ;  the  Chinese  young  lady  refused  to  go. 
Evidently  she  had  no  dread  of  me,  under- 
standing by  instinct  that  all  this  noise  was 
mere  bluster.  With  an  air  of  saying  to 
me,  "I  know  well  you  ^Yi\l  do  me  no 
harm,"  she  remained  crouched  in  her  cor- 
ner, 13'ing  low  upon  the  ground  in  the  pose 
of  a  suppliant,  and  fixing  upon  me  her  two 
dilated  eyes,  a  human  look  in  them  which 
I  have  never  seen  in  any  cat  but  her. 

AVhat  was  to  be  done  ?  I  could  not  es- 
tablish this  cat  as  a  permanent  resident  in 
my  cabin,  and,  besides,  an  animal  so  ugly 
and  so  delicate,  what  an  encumbrance  she 
would  be  for  the  future  ! 

Then  I  took  her  on  my  shoulder,  with  a 
thousand  precautions,  saying  to  her  at  the 


56        THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATU. 

same  time,  "I  am  very  sorry,  my  little 
Moumoutte,"  and  then  I  resolutely  took  it 
outside  to  the  other  end  of  the  battery,  in 
the  midst  of  the  sailors,  who,  as  a  rule,  ex- 
tend a  hospitable  welcome  to  all  kinds  of 
cats.  Flattened  against  the  timber  of  the 
bridge,  and  her  head  turned  toward  me  as 
if  to  implore  me  with  a  look  of  prayer,  she 
began  to  run  with  a  quaintly  humble  step 
in  the  direction  of  my  room,  which  she 
reached  before  me.  When  I  arrived  there 
after  her,  I  found  her  crouched  in  a  little 
corner,  and  her  eyes  were  so  expressive 
that  courage  failed  me  to  drive  her  out 
anew.  This  is  how  the  Chinese  cat  took 
me   for   a   master. 

My  orderly,  who  had  probably  been  won 
to  her  side  from  the  commencement  of  the 
struggle,  completed  her  installation  on  the 
spot  by  placing  on  the  ground,  under  my 
bed,  a  stuffed  basket  for  her  to  sleep  on, 
and  one  of  my  china  dishes  most  thought- 
fully filled  with  sand — a  detail  that  gave 
me  a  cold  shiver ! 


A  STOUT  Of  TWO  CATS.  B1 

VL 

Never  going  out  for  air,  day  or  niglit,  she 
lived  seven  months  in  the  same  obscurity 
amid  the  continual  swaying  of  this  berth, 
and  little  by  little  an  intimacy  was  estab- 
lished between  us,  and  we  acquired  at  the 
same  time  a  power  of  mutual  penetration 
very  rare  between  a  man  and  an  animal. 

I  remember  the  first  day  when  our  I'ela- 
tions  became  really  affectionate.  We  were 
out  in  the  open  on  the  north  of  the  Yellow 
Sea,  in  mournful  September  ^veather.  The 
first  fogs  of  autumn  had  already  formed 
themselves  on  the  waters,  which  had  sud- 
denly become  clouded  and  unquiet,  and  in 
these  climates  the  chills  and  the  somber 
skies  come  quick,  bringing  to  us  Europeans 
away  on  the  wing  a  melancholy  that  gi'ows 
greater  the  fui-ther  we  feel  from  home. 
We  were  going  toward  the  east,  and  there 
was  a  heavy  swell,  on  which  we  were 
rocked  in  a  monotonous  manner  that 
caused  plaintive  creakings  throughout  the 


58        THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

whole  of  the  vessel.  It  had  become  neces- 
sary to  close  the  porthole,  and  my  berth 
had  only  a  dim  light  through  the  thick 
glass,  over  which  now  and  then  the  crest  of 
waves  threw  themselves  in  grand  transpar- 
encies, alternating  with  intervals  of  dark- 
ness. I  had  taken  up  my  position  at  the 
narrow  little  sliding  desk,  which  is  the 
same  in  all  our  berths  on  ships,  with  the 
intention  of  writing  during  one  of  those 
rather  rare  moments  in  which  the  service 
leaves  one  in  complete  peace,  and  in  which 
one  is  moved  to  retire,  as  it  were,  into  one's 
cloister  cell. 

Chinese  Moumoutte  had  lived  under  my 
bed  for  about  two  weeks.  She  had  lived 
there  very  retired,  discreet,  and  melancholy, 
observing  the  proprieties  and  the  strict 
limitations  of  her  dish  filled  with  sand.  She 
showed  herself  little,  being  almost  always 
hidden,  and  overcome  apparently  by  home- 
sickness for  the  native  laud  which  she  was 
never  more  to  see. 

Suddenly  I  saw  her  appear  in  the  serai- 


A  STORY  OF  TWO  CATS.  59 

darkness,  stretch  herself  out  slowly,  as  if  to 
give  herself  still  time  for  reflection,  then  ad- 
vance toward  me,  hesitating,  stopping  now 
and  then,  sometimes  even  putting  on  all  her 
Chinese  graces ;  she  held  one  of  her  paws  in 
the  air  for  some  seconds  before  deciding^  to 
lay  it  down  on  the  ground  to  make  a  step 
fonvard. 

She  looked  at  me  fixedly  with  a  question- 
ing air. 

What  could  she  desire  from  me  ?  She 
was  not  hungiy,  that  was  plain.  A  little 
dish  to  her  taste  was  served  twice  every 
day  by  my  order.     What  was  it,  then  ? 

When  she  was  quite  near,  so  that  she  al- 
most touched  my  leg,  she  sat  down,  moved 
her  tail  round,  and  uttered  a  little  cry,  veiy 
softly. 

Then  she  continued  to  look  at  me,  but  to 
look  at  me  right  in  the  eyes,  which  already 
proved  the  possession  in  her  little  head  of 
a  whole  world  of  intelligent  conceptions. 
She  must  first  have  understood  that  I  was 
not  a  thing  but  a  thinking  being,  capable  of 


60        TUE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

the  unexpected  asylum  where  the  short 
mysterious  dream  of  her  cat's  life  could 
finish  with  the  most  peace  and  the  least 
suffering.  But  I  could  not  imagine  this 
delicate  little  Chinese,  with  her  pauper 
coat,  the  fellowlodger  of  the  proud  and 
jealous  White  Moumoutte,  who  would 
certainly  maul  her  as  soon  as  she  saw  her 
appear.     No,  that  was  impossible. 

On  the  other  hand,  to  abandon  her  to 
chance  friends  when  we  put  in  at  a  port 
— that  I  might  have  done,  perhaps,  if  she 
had  been  strong  and  beautiful ;  but  this 
plaintive  little  thing  with  her  human  eyes 
held  me  by  a  profound  feeling  of  pity. 

vm. 

Our  intimacy,  the  result  of  our  common 
isolation,  grew  daily  closer.  The  weeks 
and  the  months  passed  in  the  midst  of  a 
continual  change  in  the  external  world, 
while  everything  remained  immutably  the 
same  in  this  obscure  corner  of  the  ship 
where  the  cat  had  fixed  her  home.     For  us 


A  STORY  OF  TWO   CATS.  61 

men,  who  sail  over  the  seas,  there  are 
always  the  fresh  breezes  that  fan  us,  the 
life  in  the  open  air,  the  night  under  the 
stars,  and  the  wanderin2:s  throus^h  foreis^n 
lands.  She,  on  the  contrary,  knew  noth- 
ing of  the  immense  world  through  w^hich 
her  prison  moved — nothing  of  her  kind  or 
of  the  sun  or  of  the  grass  or  of  the  shade. 
And  without  ever  leavinof  her  home  she 
lived  there  in  the  prison  of  this  berth.  It 
was  a  place  that  w^as  sometimes  as  cold  as 
ice  when  the  porthole  opening  admitted  a 
great  draught  of  wind  which  swept  away 
everything.  More  frequently  it  was  a 
stove,  somber  and  suffocating,  where  the 
Chinese  perfumes  burned  before  old  idols 
as  in  a  Buddhist  temple.  For  her  com- 
panions of  her  dreams,  she  had  monsters  of 
wood  and  of  bronze,  nailed  to  the  walls, 
and  laughing  with  a  sinister  laugh ;  in  the 
midst  of  an  accumulation  of  sacred  things, 
captured  from  her  country  in  the  midst  of 
a  pillage,  she  blanched  from  want  of  air 
between  hansrinccs  of  silk  whi<ih  she  loved 


62        TEt)  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

to  tear  witli  her  little  unquiet  and  nervous 
claws. 

As  soon  as  I  entered  my  room  she 
would  make  her  appearance,  darting  out 
with  an  imperceptible  cry  of  joy  from 
behind  a  curtain  of  shelves,  or  a  box,  like 
some  imp.  If  by  chance  I  sat  down  to 
write,  Moumoutte,  with  much  wheedling 
and  tenderness,  in  quest  of  protection  and 
caresses,  would  slowly  take  her  place  on 
my  knees  and  follow  with  her  eyes  the 
progress  of  my  pen,  blotting  out  sometimes 
with  an  entirely  unexpected  stroke  from 
her  paw  such  lines  as  did  not  meet  with 
her   approval. 

The  bumps  in  bad  weather,  the  noise  of 
our  cannon,  caused  her  a  terror  that  was 
dangerous.  In  such  moments  she  jumped 
against  the  walls,  twisted  round  like  one 
possessed,  and  then  stopped,  panting,  and 
went  and  curled  herself  up  in  her  corner 
looking  sad  and  frightened. 

Her  cloistered  youth  had  in  it  some- 
thing  unhealthy   and   strange,   which   in- 


A  STORY  OF  TWO  GATjS.  63 

creased  daily.  Her  appetite,  however, 
remained  good,  and  tlie  dishes  continued 
to  be  eaten  with  satisfaction.  But  she 
was  thin — singularly  thin ;  her  nose  be- 
came long  and  her  ears  drawn  out,  like 
those  of  a  bat.  Her  large  yellow  eyes 
sought  mine  always  with  an  expression  of 
timid  affection  or  of  anxious  inquiry  on  the 
unknown  in  life,  which  was  as  troublesome 
and  as  unfathomable  to  her  small  intelli- 
gence as  to  mine. 

Very  inquisitive  as  to  things  outside,  in 
spite  of  her  inexplicable  obstinacy  about 
never  crossing  the  threshold  of  my  door, 
she  did  not  nesflect  to  examine  with  ex- 
treme  attention  every  new  object  which 
came  into  our  common  room,  brins^inor  to 
her  the  confused  impression  of  the  exotic 
countries  through  which  our  ships  had 
passed.  For  example,!  remember  once  to 
have  seen  her  so  interested  as  to  forget  her 
breakfast  in  a  bouquet  of  sweet-smelling 
orchids,  which  were  veiy  extraordinary  to 
her   who   had    nev^er    known   gardens   or 


64       THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

pity  and  accessible  to  the  mute  prayer  of  a 
look.  Further,  she  must  have  known  that 
my  eyes  were  open  to  her  eyes — that  is  to 
say,  mirrors  in  which  her  little  soul  could 
anxiously  seek  to  find  the  reflection  of  mine. 
And,  indeed,  they  are  frightfully  near  to  us 
when  you  think  of  it — the  animals  who 
are  capable  of  thinking  two  such  things. 

As  for  me,  I  examined  with  attention  for 
the  first  time  the  little  visitor  who  now  for 
almost  two  weeks  had  shared  my  cabin. 

She  had  the  yellow  color  of  a  wild  hare ; 
was  covered  with  spots  like  a  tiger ;  her  nose 
and  neck  were  white — in  fact,  she  was 
ugly,  and  miserably  thin,  or,  rather,  she 
was  bizarre  rather  than  ugly  to  a  man  like 
me,  emancipated  from  all  the  commonplace 
rules  of  beauty.  In  other  respects  she  was 
rather  different  from  our  French  cats.  She 
was  low  upon  her  paws,  and  not  unlike  a 
marten  with  a  huge  tail.  Her  ears  were 
large  and  straight,  and  her  face  by  its 
sharpness  suggested  the  corner  of  a  wall ; 
but  the  charm  was  in  her  eyes,  which  were 


A  STORY  OF  TWO  CATS.  65 

raised  toward  her  temples  like  all  eyes  in 
extreme  Asia,  of  a  beautiful  golden  yellow 
in  place  of  green,  incessantly  mobile,  aston- 
ishingly expressive,  and  while  I  looked  at 
her  I  allowed  my  hand  to  descend  on  her 
strange  little  head  and  stroked  her  coat  as 
a  first  caress. 

What  she  felt  was  something  different 
and  far  removed  from  the  mere  impression 
of  physical  comfort.  She  had  the  sense  of 
protection,  of  sympathy  with  her  in  her 
distress  and  abandonment.  That  is  the 
reason  Miss  Moumoutte  had  come  forth 
from  her  dark  nest.  What  she  had  deter- 
mined to  ask  me,  after  so  much  hesitation, 
was  not  food  or  drink.  It  was  for  her 
little  cat-soul  a  little  companionship  in  this 
world,  a  little  friendship.  . 

Where  had  she  learned  all  this — this 
wastrel  cat,  never  flattered  by  any  friendly 
hand,  never  loved  by  anybody — unless, 
perhaps,  in  the  paternal  junk  by  some 
little  Chinese  child  without  playthings  and 
without  caresses — brouo-ht  into  this  swarm- 


66        THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

ing  mass  of  yellow  humanity  like  a  super- 
fluous plant,  as  miserable  and  as  hungry  as 
herself,  who  also,  in  disappearing,  would 
leave  as  little  trace  behind  ? 

Then  a  little  delicate  paw  was  placed 
timidly  on  me — oh  !  with  what  delicacy 
and  with  what  discretion  ;  and  after  having 
for  yet  a  long  time  studied  and  besought 
me,  Moumoutte,  thinking  she  might  rush 
things,  jumped  at  last  on  my  knees. 

She  installed  herself  there  in  a  lump, 
but  with  such  tact  and  such  discretion, 
making  herself  quite  light,  scarcely  leaning 
on  me,  and  almost  without  weight;  and 
looking  at  me  all  the  time.  She  remained 
there  a  long  time,  interfering  witli  me 
certainly.  But  I  had  not  the  courage  to 
driv«  her  away,  which  I  certainly  should 
have  done  if  she  had  been  a  pretty  Joyous 
animal  in  the  splendor  of  life.  All  this 
time,  afraid  of  the  least  of  my  motions,  she 
did  not  lose  sight  of  me;  not  that  she 
feared  I  would  do  her  any  harm — she  was 
too  intelligent   to  believe   me   capable   of 


A  STORY  OF  TWO   CATS.  67 

that — but  witli  the  air  of  saying  to  me, 
"  Am  I  really  disturbing  you  ?  Am  I 
annoying  you?"  Then  her  eyes  became 
more  expressive  and  more  wheedling  still, 
saying  to  me  quite  clearly,  "  In  this  autumn 
day,  so  sad  to  the  hearts  of  cats,  since  we 
are  here  together,  both  isolated  beings,  in 
this  home  tliat  is  being  rolled  about  so  and 
lost  in  the  midst  of  I  know  not  what 
danger  and  infinitude,  suppose  we  give,  one 
to  the  other,  a  little  of  that  kindness  which 
softens  troubles,  which  resembles  the  im- 
material that  defies  death,  which  is  called 
affection,  and  expresses  itself  from  time  to 
time  by  a  caress  ? " 

VII. 

When  the  treaty  of  friendship  was 
signed  between  this  animal  and  me,  I  felt 
some  disquietude  as  to  the  future.  What 
was  to  be  done  with  her  ?  Was  I  to  bring 
her  back  to  France  over  so  many  thou- 
sands of  miles  and  through  so  many  difii- 
culties  ?     Clearly  my  fireside  ^vas  for  her 


68       THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

forests,  had  never  seen  any  flowers  but 
tliose  that  had  been  gathered  into  and  had 
died  in  my  bronze  vases. 

In  spite  of  her  ugly  and  shabby  coat, 
v^hich,  at  first  sight,  gave  her  the  appear- 
ance of  a  cat  from  the  gutter,  she  had  in 
her  face  a  rare  distinction,  and  the  least 
movements  of  her  paws  had  a  patrician 
grace.  Thus  she  produced  upon  me  the 
eif  ect  of  some  little  Princess,  condemned  by 
the  bad  fairies  to  share  my  solitude  under 
an  inferior  form,  and  I  thought  of  that 
story  of  the  mother  of  the  great  Tchengis 
Khan,  which  an  American  priest  at  Con- 
stantinople, my  professor  in  the  Turk- 
ish language,  had  given  me  to  trans- 
late: 

The  young  Princess  Ulemalik-Kureklu,  conse- 
crated to  deatli  before  her  birth  in  case  slxe  ever 
saw  the  liglit  of  day,  was  imprisoned  in  a  dark 
dungeon. 

"  What  is  this  thing  they  call  the  world  ?  Is 
there  any  space  elsewhere  ?  and  is  this  tower  in 
anything  ?  " 

"No,  Princess,  this  is  not  the  world;    it  is  out- 


A  STORY  OF  TWO   CATS.  69 

side,  and  it  is  much  larger.  And  then  there 
are  things  which  are  called  stars  and  sun  and 
moon." 

•"  Oh  !  "  replied  Ulemalik,  "let  me  die,  but  let 
me  see. " 

IX. 

It  was  at  tlie  end  of  ^vinter  and  in  the 
fii'st  warm  days  of  March  when  Chinese 
Moumoutte  made  her  entrance  into  my 
house  in  France. 

White  Moumoutte,  to  whom  my  eyes  had 
grown  unaccustomed  during  my  campaign 
in  China,  still  bore  at  this  epoch  of  the  year 
the  royal  coat  of  cold  weather,  and  I  never 
knew  her  more  imposing. 

The  contrast  would  be  the  more  striking 
with  the  other,  emaciated,  and  with  its  poor 
coat  like  that  of  a  wild  hare,  and  with  holes 
in  places  as  though  it  had  been  eaten  by 
moths.  Thus  I  was  very  much  embar- 
rassed when  my  servant  Sylvester,  returning 
with  her  from  the  ship,  raised  with  a  half- 
waggish  ail'  the  lid  of  the  basket  where  he 
had  placed  her,  and  when  this  small  Chinese 


VO       THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

friend  had  to  come  forth  in  the  midst  of  all 
my  assembled  family. 

The  first  impression  was  to  be  deplored ; 
and  I  recall  all  the  conviction  my  Aunt 
Claire  put  into  the  simple  phrase. 

"  Oh,  dear,  how  ugly  she  is  ! " 

She  was,  indeed,  very  ugly.  And  how 
and  under  what  pretext  and  with  what  ex- 
cuses could  I  introduce  her  to  White  Mou- 
m6utte.  Not  being  able  to  hit  on  any- 
thing, I  took  her  for  the  moment  into  an 
isolated  granary — to  hide  them  from  each 
other  and  to  gain  time  for  reflection. 

X. 

Their  first  interview  was  something  ter- 
rible. 

It  came  about  unexpectedly  some  days 
afterward  in  the  kitchen — a  spot  which 
has  irresistible  attractions,  and  where  cats 
who  live  in  the  same  house  are  bound  some 
day  to  meet.  In  all  haste,  they  came  to 
fetch  me,  and  I  ran.  There  were  inhuman 
cries ;  a  ball,  a  heap  of  fur  and  claws,  com- 


A  STORY  OF  TWO  CATS.  71 

posed  of  their  two  little  bodies,  entangled 
in  each  other,  rolled  and  leaped  ;  shivering 
glasses,  plates,  dishes,  while  the  white  coat 
and  the  hare-colored  fur  flew  in  little  tufts 
all  around.  It  was  necessary  to  intervene 
with    enei-gy,   and   to    separate   them   by 

throwing  a  bottle  of  water  over  both 

I  was  horrified. 

XI. 

Trembling,  scratched,  her  heart  beating 
as  though  it  would  burst,  Chinese  Mou- 
moutte,  gathered  up  in  my  arms,  crouched 
up  against  me  and  gradually  grew  tranquil, 
her  nerves  relieved,  and  with  a  look  of 
sweet  security.  Then  she  became  grad- 
ually soft  and  inert,  like  something  without 
life,  which  with  cats  is  an  expression  of 
supreme  confidence  in  those  who  hold 
them. 

White  Moumoutte,  pensive  and  somber, 
looked  at  us  with  wide-open  eyes ;  and  a 
line  of  reasoning  began  to  da^vn  in  her 
jealous  little  head.     She,   who  from  one 


V2        THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

year's  end  to  tlie  otlier  mauled  on  the  wall 
the  same  neighbors,  inale  and  female,  with- 
out ever  becoming  accustomed  to  their  ap- 
pearance, began  to  understand  that  this 
foreigner  belonged  to  me  since  I  took,  it 
thus  into  my  embrace,  and  since  she  took  to 
it  tenderly.  Thus  she  must  do  it  no 
further  injury,  but  must  become  resigned 
and  tolerant  of  its  presence  in  the  house. 

My  surprise  and  my  admiration  were 
great  to  see  them  pass  each  other  a  moment 
after,  each  disdainful  of  the  other,  but 
calm,  very  correct.  It  was  over;  duiing 
the  rest  of  their  lives  they  were  never  angry 
with  one  another.  . 

xn. 

Ah !  the  springtime  of  that  year — how 
well  I  remember  it.  Although  very  short, 
as  all  seasons  appear  to  be  now,  it  was  one  of 
the  last  of  those  that  still  retained  for  me  the 
charm,  and  even  an  approach  to  the  myster- 
ious enchantment,  of  those  of  my  child- 
hood.    Moreover,  it  was  passed  amid  the 


A  STORY  OF  TWO   CATS.  13 

same  surroundings  of  the  same  flowers  re- 
newed in  tbe  same  place  on  the  same 
antique  jessamines  and  tlie  same  rose-trees. 
After  each  of  my  campaigns  I  have  come 
to  forget  in  a  very  few  days  the  continents 
and  tlie  vast  seas.  Once  more,  as  at  life's 
start,  I  limit  my  external  world  to  those 
old  walls  clad  with  ivy  and  with  moss 
which  surrounded  me  when  I  was  a  little 
child.  The  distant  countries,  where  I  have 
gone  so  many  times  to  live,  appear  to  me 
as  unreal  as  in  the  days  when,  before  seeing 
them,  I  dreamed  of  them.  The  illimitable 
horizons  close  in;  everything  quietly  con- 
tracts, and  quite  naturally  I  reach  the 
point  of  almost  forgetting  that  there  exists 
ought  else  than  our  mossy  stones,  our  arbu- 
tus trees,  our  vines,  and  our  sweet  white 
roses. 

I  Avas  building  up  a  Buddhist  pagoda  at 
this  time  in  a  comer  of  my  house  with  the 
remains  of  a  temple  destroyed  la-has. 
Enormous  chests  were  being  opened  eveiy 
day  in  my  courtyard,  spreading  that  inde- 


14:     Tee  book  of  pity  and  of  dea  th. 

finable  and  complex  odor  of  China.  They 
unpacked  in  the  beautiful  new  sunshine 
shafts  of  columns,  stones  of  arches,  ugly 
altars  and  ancient  idols.  It  was  amusing, 
and  curious  also,  to  see  these  things  reap 
pear  one  by  one,  and  then  spread  them- 
selves on  the  grass  and  moss  of  the  old 
familiar  stones — all  these  monsters  of  far- 
thest Asia,  making  the  same  grimaces  under 
our  paler  sun  as  they  had  made  in  their 
own  homes  for  years — for  centuries.  From 
time  to  time,  mamma  arid  Aunt  Claire 
came  to  inspect  them,  frightened  by  their 
astounding  ugliness.  But  it  was  Chinese 
Moumoutte  who  assisted  with  most  inter- 
est at  these  unpackings.  She  recognized 
her  traveling  companions ;  she  smelt  at 
everything  with  confused  recollections  of 
her  own  country ;  then,  from  her  habit  of 
living  in  the  dark,  she  hastened  to  creep 
into  the  empty  chests  and.  to  hide  herself 
there  where  the  idols  had  been,  under  this 
exotic  hay  that  smelt  of  musk  and  sandal. 
It   was    truly    a    beautiful     and   very 


A  STORY  OF  TWO  CATS.  V5 

bright  spring,  with  an  excess  of  the  music 
of  the  swallow  and  the  martens  in  the  air. 
And  Chinese  Mouraoutte  wondered  at  it 
exceedingly.  Poor  little  hermit !  reared  in 
a  stifling  twilight,  she  was  at  once  alarmed 
and  delighted  by  the  broad  daylight,  the 
air  soft  to  breathe,  the  neighborhood  of 
other  cats.  She  made  at  this  period  long 
exploring  excursions  in  the  courtyard,  snif- 
fing at  all  the  young  blades  of  grass,  all 
the  new  sprouts  that  came  forth  from  the 
warmed  earth  fresh  and  sweet-smelling. 
These  forms  and  shades  which,  old  as  the 
world,  the  plants  reproduce  unconsciously 
every  April,  these  laws  of  immutability 
under  which  the  first  leaves  unfold  and 
come  out,  were  things  absolutely  new  and 
sui-prising  to  her  who  had  never  seen  any 
verdure  or  any  spring.  And  White  Mou- 
moutte,  formerly  the  sole  and  Jealous  sov- 
ereign of  these  realms,  had  consented  to 
share  them,  allowing  the  other  to  wander 
at  her  pleasure  in  the  midst  of  the  arbutus 
trees,  the  flowerpots,  and  among  the  old 


16       THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

gray  walls,  under  the  spreading  })ranclies. 
It  was  the  shores  of  the  miniature  lake  in 
particular — so  intimately  associated  with 
ray  memories  of  childhood — that  attracted 
her.  There  in  the  grass,  which  every  day 
grew  higher  and  thicker,  she  walked,  bend- 
ing down  like  a  hunted  deer,  a  trick  in- 
herited without  doubt  from  her  ancestors, 
Mongolian  cats  with  primitive  manners. 
She  hid  herself  behind  the  Lilij^utian 
rocks,  buried  herself  under  the  ivy  like  a 
little  tiger  in  a  miniature  virgin  forest. 

It  was  an  amusement  to  me  to  watch 
her  goings  and  comings,  her  sudden  halts, 
her  surprises.  And  she,  feeling  herself 
watched,  would  turn  and  look  at  me,  be- 
coming immovable  all  at  once  in  an  atti- 
tude that  was  becoming  to  her — an  atti- 
tude very  graceful  but  affected,  after  the 
Chinese  fashion,  with  a  paw  in  front  of  her 
in  the  air  in  the  manner  of  those  persons 
who,  when  taking  hold  of  an  object, 
coquettishly  lift  their  little  finger.  And 
her  droll  yellow  eyes  wnre  then  extremely 


A  STORY  OF  TWO  CATS.  77 

expressive — speaking  eyes,  as  good  people 
say.  "  You  have  no  objection  to  my  con- 
tinuing my  walk  ? "  slie  seemed  to  ask. 
"  It  doesn't  put  you  out  in  any  way,  does 
it?  You  see,  I  walk  and  move  with  such 
lightness,  with  such  discretion.  And  you'll 
admit  'tis  all  very  pretty  here — all  these 
extraordinary  little  green  things  which 
scatter  their  fresh  odoi's,  and  this  good 
air,  so  pure,  and  this  vast  space  !  And 
these  other  things,  also,  which  I  see  around 
me,  which  they  call  stars  and  the  sun  and 
the  moon !  How  different  from  om*  old 
home,  and  how  pleasant  it  is  to  be  in  this 
country  where  we  have  both  arrived  ! " 

This  place,  so  new  to  her,  was  to  me  the 
oldest  and  the  most  familiar  of  all  places 
on  earth — the  spot  where  the  smallest  de- 
tails, the  smallest  blades  of  grass,  were 
knoAvn  to  me  from  the  first  uncertain  and 
astonished  hours  of  my  existence.  To  such 
a  degree  was  this  the  case  that  I  was  at- 
tached to  it  with  all  my  heart ;  that  I  loved 
in    a  peculiar   fashion — a   little  idolatrous 


78        THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

perhaps — some  of  tlie  plants  that  are  in  it, 
vines,  jessamines,  and  a  certain  dielytra 
rose,  which  every  March  shows  in  the  same 
place  its  buds  red  with  young  sap,  displays 
very  quickly  its  early  leaves,  gives  the 
same  flowers  once  again  in  April,  grows 
yellow  in  the  sun  of  June,  then  burns  in 
the  sun  of  August,  and  seems  to  die. 

And  while  the  little  Chinese  Moumoutte 
allowed  herself  to  be  enticed  by  all  these 
airs  of  joy,  of  youth,  of  opening  life,  I,  on 
the  contrary,  who  knew  that  all  this  passes 
away,  felt  for  the  first  time  ascend  into  my 
life  the  sense  of  evening,  of  that  great  and 
inexorable  night  without  a  morrow,  of  that 
last  autumn  which  will  be  followed  by  no 
springtime.  And,  with  infinite  melan- 
choly, I  looked  in  this  gay  courtyard, 
brightened  by  the  new  sun,  at  the  two 
dear  figures  with  white  hair  that  walked 
up  and  down  there  in  their  robes  of 
mourning,  mamma  and  Aunt  Claire.  I 
watched  them  as  they  stooped,  as  they  had 
done  for  so  many  a  spi'ing  before,  to  recog- 


A  SfORt  OF  fWO  CATS.  19 

nize  what  buds  had  pushed  through  the 
earth,  and  raised  theu'  heads  to  look  at  the 
buds  of  glycine  and  of  roses.  And  when 
their  black  dresses  appeared  and  reappeared 
from  the  back  of  that  green  avenue  which 
forms  the  courtyard  of  our  family  mansion, 
I  particularly  remarked  that  their  stej)  was 
slower  and  more  infirm.  Alas,  for  the 
early  day  when,  perhaps,  I  would  never 
see  them  like  this  again  in  the  green 
avenue !  Must  such  a  time  ever  really  come  ? 
When  they  have  gone  from  me,  I  have  the 
illusive  idea  that  it  will  not  be  a  complete 
departure  so  long  as  I  shall  be  on  this  spot, 
able  to  recall  their  sweet  presence.  I  be- 
lieve that  in  the  summer  evenings  I  shall 
sometimes  see  their  blessed  shadows  pass 
under  the  old  jessamines  and  the  old  vine 
trees;  and  that  something  of  them  will 
remain  dimly  in  the  plants  which  they 
have  cared  for — ^in  the  falling  honeysuckle, 
in  the  old  dielytra  rose. 


80       THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

xm. 

While  Cliinese  Moumoiitte  lived  this 
open-air  life,  she  became  visibly  more 
beautiful  eveiy  day.  The  holes  in  her 
hare-colored  coat  were  replaced  by  a  quite 
new  fur  ;  she  became  less  thin,  more  smooth 
and  more  careful  of  her  person,  and  no 
longer  had  a  dissipated  appearance.  Once 
mamma  and  Aunt  Claire  stopped  to  speak 
to  her,  amused  by  her  unique  manners,  by 
her  expressive  eyes,  and  by  her  soft  little 
answers  of  "  Prr  !  Prr ! "  which  she  never 
failed  to  give  when  anybody  addressed 
her. 

"Really,"  they  said,  "this  young  China 
lady  looks  as  if  she  felt  happy  with  us; 
we  have  never  seen  a  cat  with  a  happier 
face." 

It  was  the  happy  and  grateful  look  which 
she  had  for  him  who  brouo;ht  her  thither. 
And  the  happiness  of  young  animals  is  com- 
plete, perhaps,  because  they  have  no  sense 
of  the  inexorable  future.     She  passed  days 


A  STORY  OF  TWO  CATS.  81 

in  delicious  reflection,  in  attitudes  of  su- 
preme comfort,  stretclied  cai'elessly:  on  the 
stones  and  the  moss,  enjoying  the  silence — 
a  little  melancholy  to  me — of  this  house 
which  neither  the  roar  of  cannon  nor  the 
crash  of  Avave  ever  troubled.  She  had  ar- 
rived at  the  port,  remote  and  tranquil,  at  the 
last  halting-place  in  her  life,  and  she  rested 
herself,  unconscious-of  the  coming  end. 

XIV. 

One  fine  day,  without  any  period  of  tran- 
sition, and  by  a  sudden  caprice,  the  tolera- 
tion of  White  Moumoutte  for  Chinese 
Moumoutte  was  transfomed  into  a  tender 
friendship.  She  approached  with  deliber- 
ation, and  then,  all  of  a  sudden,  she  kissed 
the  lips  of  the  other  one,  which  among  cats 
its  the  equivalent  of  a  most  affectionate 
embrace. 

Sylvester,  who  w^as  present  at  the  scene, 
was,  however,  skeptical. 

"  Did  you,"  said  I,  "  see  the  kiss  of  peace 
between  the  Moumouttes  ? " 


82        TEE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

"  Oh  no,  sir,"  replied  he,  with  that  per- 
fectly kuowing  air  which  he  always  as- 
sumes when  any  question  arises  with  regai'd 
to  the  inner  life  of  my  cats,  horses,  or  any 
other  animal.  "  No,  sir.  White  Moumoutte 
simply  wanted  to  satisfy  herself,  by  smell- 
ing the  muzzle  of  the  Chinese,  whether  she 
had  not  just  eaten  her  food." 

He  was  wrong,  however.  I  found  they 
were  friends  from  this  day.  You  could 
see  them,  seated  in  the  same  chair,  eat  their 
dinners  from  the  same  dish,  and  every 
morning  I'un  to  give  each  other  "good- 
morrow^  "  by  rubbing  the  ends  of  their 
comical  noses,  the  one  yellow,  the  other 
rose-colored. 

XV. 

By  the  time  we  had  got  to  saying,  "  The 
Moumouttes  have  done  this  or  that,"  they 
were  an  intimate  and  inseparable  couple, 
consulting  each  other  and  imitating  each 
other  down  to  the  least  and  most  trivial 
actions  of  their  life — combins;  each  other, 


A  STORY  OF  TWO  CATS.  83 

licking  each  otlier,  making  their  toilet  in 
common  with  mutual  tenderness. 

White  Moumoutte  continued  to  be  the 
special  cat  of"  Aunt  Claire,  while  the 
Chinese  remained  my  little  faithful  fiiend, 
with  always  her  same  tender  manner  of 
following  me  with  her  eyes,  of  answering 
to  the  least  call  of  my  voice.  Scarcely 
could  I  seat  myself  when  a  light  paw 
would  place  itself  softly  upon  me,  as  in 
the  old  days  on  board  ship ;  two  yellow 
eyes  would  interrogate  me  with  an  intense 
human  expression.  Then,  houp-la!  Chi- 
nese sat  on  my  knees ;  very  slow  in  select- 
ing her  position,  scratching  ^\nth  her  two 
pa\vs,  turning  herself  around  in  this  direc- 
tion and  then  in  that,  and  she  had  Just 
nicely  installed  herself  when  I  was  ready 
to  go  away. 

What  a  strange  mystery,  what  a  prob- 
lem of  soul — the  constant  affection  of  an 
animal  and  its  enduring  gratitude ! 


84       THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 
XVI. 

They  were  very  much  spoiled,  these  two 
Momnouttes.  They  w^ere  admitted  into 
the  dining  room  at  meal-hours ;  they  were 
found  seated  at  my  side,  one  on  the  right 
and  the  other  on  the  left;  recalling  them- 
selves from  time  to  time  to  my  memory  by 
a  little,  discreet  pat  of  their  paws  on  my 
napkin,  and  enjoying  the  scraps  which  I 
gave  them  for  dinner,  like  a  schoolboy 
who  knew  he  was  at  fault,  and  from  the 
end  of  my  own  fork. 

In  telling  all  this  I  am  afraid  that  I 
injure  my  reputation,  which  already  it 
appears  is  so  stained  by  eccentricity  and 
want  of  decorum.  I,  nevertheless,  am  in  a 
position  to  expose  a  certain  Academician, 
who,  having  done  me  the  honor  of  sitting 
at  my  table,  did  not  abstain  from  offering 
to  each  of  them  in  his  own  spoon  a  little 
Chantilly  cream.* 

*  This  episode  was  written  before  the  election  of  M.  Loti 
to  the  French  Academy. 


A  BTORY  OF  TWO  GATS.  85 

xvn. 

The  summer  which  followed  was  for 
Chinese  Moumoutte  an  absolutely  delicious 
period  in  her  life.  With  her  orginality  and 
her  air  of  distinction,  she  had  become 
almost  pretty,  and  then  also  her  fur  had 
been  renewed.  Ai'ound  in  the  world  of 
cats,  at  the  bottom  of  the  garden  and  on 
the  I'oofs,  the  report  had  circulated  of  the 
arrival  of  this  piquant  stranger,  and  the 
admirers  were  numerous  who  came  to  mew 
under  the  windows  in  the  beautiful  warm 
nights  perfumed  with  honeysuckle.  To- 
ward the  middle  of  September,  the  two 
Moumouttes  knew  almost  at  the  same  time 
the  joy  of  maternity.  White  Moumoutte 
was,  as  may  be  imagined,  a  mother  on  a 
large  scale ;  Chinese  Moumoutte,  on  the 
other  hand,  when  the  first  moments  of  sur- 
prise had  passed,  was  seen  to  lick  tenderly 
the  prized  and  tiny  little  gray  kitten, 
streaked  like  a  tiger,  who  was  her  only 
son. 


86       THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

xvm. 

The  reciprocal  affection  of  these  two 
families  was  very  touching;  the  funny 
little  Chinaman  and  the  Angora,  round  as  a 
powder  puff,  played  together,  and  were 
cleaned,  combed,  and  fed  by  either  one  or 
the  other  of  the  two  Moumouttes  with  an 
almost  equal  solicitude. 

XIX. 

Winter  is  the  season  in  -which  cats  be- 
come especially  the  guests  of  the  house- 
hold, the  companions  at  all  nroments  at  the 
fireside,  sharing  with  us  the  dancing  flames, 
the  vague  melancholies  of  twilight  and  our 
unfathomable  dreams. 

It  is  also,  as  everybody  knows,  the  epoch 
of  their  greatest  beauty,  their  greatest 
luxuiy  of  coat  and  of  fur.  Chinese  Mou. 
moutte,  when  the  cold  came  first,  had  no 
longer  any  holes  in  her  coat,  and  White 
Moumoutte  had  put  up  an  imposing  cravat, 
^  l?oa  of  whitest  snow  whioh  framed  her 


A  STORY  OF  TWO   CATS,  81 

face  like  a  niff  a  la  Medici.  Their  affec- 
tion was  increased  by  tlie  pleasure  that 
they  experienced  in  warming  each  other 
near  the  hearth ;  on  cushions,  on  arm- 
chairs, they  slept  Avhole  days  in  each 
other's  arms,  rolled  into  a  single  ball,  in 
which  you  could  no  longer  distinguish 
their   heads  or   tails. 

It  was  Chinese  Moumoutte  especially 
which  could  never  get  near  enough  to  the 
other.  If,  after  returning  from  some  ex- 
pedition in  the  open  air,  she  perceived  her 
friend  White  Moxuuoutte  asleep  before  the 
fire,  very  gently,  ever  so  gently,  she  ap- 
proached, with  strategy  as  careful  as 
though  she  were  trying  to  sur])rise  a 
mouse,  while  the  other,  always  capricious, 
nervous,  irritated  at  being  distui'bed,  some- 
times gave  a  liglit  stroke  of  her  paw  or  a 
smack.  Chinese  Moumoutte  never  replied, 
but,  lifting  only  her  little  hand,  like  a  men- 
acing gesture  in  fun,  she  said  to  me  fi'om 
the  corner  of  her  eye,  "  Isn't  she  a  difficult 
creature  to  deal  with?    But  I  don't  takQ 


88        TEE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

her  seriously,  of  course,  you  know."  With 
an  increase  of  precautions  she  always  suc- 
ceeded in  her  purpose,  which  was  that  they 
should  sleep  one  with  the  other,  her  head 
buried  in  the  beautiful  snowy  fur — and  be- 
fore going  to  sleep  she  said  to  me,  still 
with  that  half-look  of  an  eye  scarcely 
opened,  "  That  is  just  what  I  want ;  I  am 
all  right  now." 


XX. 


Ah,  those  wonderful  winter  evenings  of 
ours  at  that  time  !  In  the  depths  of  the 
house,  silent,  dark,  empty,  and  almost  too 
large,  in  the  very  warm  little  room  of  the 
rez-de-chaussee,  which  looked  out  on  the 
courtyard  and  on  the  gardens,  mamma  and 
Aunt  Claire  sat  under  the  hanging  lamp — 
in  this  place  familiar  duiing  so  many  pre- 
vious and  similar  winters;  and  most  fre- 
quently I  sat  there  also,  in  order  not  to 
lose  one  moment  of  their  presence  on  earth 
and  of  my  association  with  them.  In  an- 
other part  of  the  house,  far  away  from  us, 


A  STORY  OF  TWO  CATS.  89 

I  left  my  workroom — my  Aladdin  I'oom — 
black  and  fii-eless,  merely  for  the  pleasure 
of  passing  our  evenings  all  together  in  this 
little  room,  which  Avas  the  most  secret 
coulisse  of  our  family  life,  a  place  where 
we'  were  more  unconstrainedly  at  home 
than  anywhere  else.  No  other  place  be- 
sides has  ever  given  me  so  complete  and  so 
sweet  an  impression  of  a  nest,  nowhere 
have  I  been  able  to  warm  myself  with 
more  soothing  melancholy  than  in  front  of 
the  flames  in  the  wide  fire  of  this  hearth. 
The  windows,  with  shutters,  which  in  our 
confident  tranquillity  were  never  closed ; 
the  closed  door,  with  just  a  suggestion  of 
rusticity,  looked  out  on  the  black  Avinter 
foliage  and  the  laurel  trees,  on  the  ivy,  on 
the  walls,  sometimes  illuminated  by  a 
moonbeam.  No  noise  reached  us  from  the 
street,  which  was  pretty  far  away,  and 
which,  besides,  was  very  quiet,  scarcely  dis- 
turbed from  time  to  time  by  the  songs  of 
sailoi's  celebrating  their  return  home.  No, 
we  heard  rather  the  noise  of  the  country, 


90       TUE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

whose  presence  we  felt  almost  near,  just 
beyond  the  low  gardens  and  the  town  ram- 
j)ai'ts.  In  the  summer  we  heard  tlie  im- 
mense concert  of  the  grasshoj)pers  m  those 
marshy  plains  which  surrounded  us,  but 
were  joined  together  like  steppes,  and 
from  moment  to  moment  the  tiny  note,  like 
the  sad  flute,  of  the  owl.  In  the  winter, 
on  those  nights  of  which  I  sjjeak,  we  heard 
some  cry  of  a  seabird,  and  especially  the 
long  moaning  of  the  western  wind  com- 
ing  from   the   sea. 

On  tlie  large  table,  covered  with  a  cer- 
tain flowered  cloth  which  I*  knew  all  my 
life,  Mamma  and  Aunt  Claire  spread  their 
precious  workbaskets,  where  they  had 
things  which  I  would  call  fundamental,  if 
I  dared  to  employ  a  word  which  in  the 
present  case  has  a  meaning  to  me  alone — 
all  those  little  things  which  have  taken 
the  place  of  relics  in  my  eyes,  which  have 
acquired  in  my  memory,  in  my  life,  an  im- 
portance of  the  very   first  order — embroi- 


A  STORY  OF  TWO  CATS.  ^1 

dery  scissors,  handed  down  from  ancestors, 
which  were  lent  to  me  when  I  was  quite  a 
child,  with  a  thousand  warnings,  to  amuse 
myself  in  cutting  things  up  ;  reels  made  of 
the  rare  wood  of  the  colonies,  brought 
from  there  by  saikirs,  which  in  the  past 
had  caused  me  so  many  a  dream  ;  needle- 
cases,  glasses,  thimbles,  boxes,  I  knew 
them  all,  and  how  much  I  loved  them  ! — 
those  poor  little  nothings,  so  precious  to 
me,  which  I  remembered  as  -they  were  laid 
out  for  so  many  years  on  the  old  flowered 
tableclotli  by  the  hands  of  mamma  and 
Aunt  Claire.  After  every  long  voyage, 
with  what  a  feeling  of  tenderness  I  found 
them  again  and  gave  them  my  greeting  on 
arrival !  I  employed  Just  a  moment  ago 
for  them  the  word  "  fundamental  " — a 
word  whose  inappropriateness  I  acknowl- 
edge ;  but  here  is  how  I  explain  it :  if  any- 
body were  to  destroy  them,  if  they  ceased 
to  exist  in  the  same  eternal  place,  I  would 
have  felt  an   impression   of   having  made 


92        THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

one  long  step  further  toward  the  annihi- 
lation of  myself,  towai'd  dust,  toward 
oblivion. 

And  when  they  have  both  departed — 
mamma  and  Aunt  Claire — it  seems  to  me 
that  these  dear  little  objects,  religiously 
preserved  by  them,  will  call  back  again 
their  presence,  will  prolong  for  a  little 
their   sojourn    among   us. 

The  Moumouttes,  of  course,  also  took 
possession  of  this  room,  sleeping  together 
in  one  single  warm  ball  on  some  armchair 
or  some  stool,  as  near  as  possible  to  the 
fire,  and  their  unexpected  awakenings, 
their  reflections,  their  curious  ideas,  amused 
our  evenings,  which  were  somewhat  taci- 
turn. White  Moumoutte  was  once  seized 
by  a  sudden  desire  of  being  no  longer  in 
our  company.  She  jumped  upon  the  table, 
and  seated  herself  with  gravity  on  the 
work  of  Aunt  Claire,  turning  her  back 
upon  her,  after  having  unexpectedly  rubbed 
her  face  with  her  imposing  black  tail. 
Then   she   remained   there,   impolite    and 


A  STORY  OF  TWO  CATS.  93 

obstinate,  in  contemplation  before  the  flame 
of  the  lamp. 

Or  sometimes,  on  one  of  those  nights  of 
sharp  frost  which  disturb  the  nerves  of 
cats,  you  heard  suddenly  in  the  neighboring 
garden  a  discussion,  and  "  jVIiaou,  miaou, 
miaou ! "  Then  the  quiet  robe  of  fur,  which 
slumbered  so  still,  became  suddenly  erect, 
with  two  heads  and  two  pairs  of  ears. 
Once  again  came  the  sound  of  "  Miaou, 
miaou,  miaou  !  "  It  was  not  going  to  stop, 
then  !  White  Moumoutte,  rising  with  re- 
solution, her  fur  erect  for  Avar,  rushed  from 
one  door  to  another,  seeking  an  outlet,  as 
if  called  outside  by  an  imperious  duty  of 
supreme  importance.  "No,  no,  Mou- 
moutte," said  Aunt  Claire ;  "  you  need  not 
mix  yourself  up  in  this,  I  assure  you.  It 
will  be  all  right  without  you."  The 
Chinese,  on  the  other  hand,  always  calmer, 
and  not  anxious  for  perilous  adventures, 
contented  herself  with  looking  at  me 
from  the  corner  of  her  eye  with  an  air 
at  once  intelligent  and   ironical;  she   said 


94       THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

to    me,    "Am    I    not     right    to     remain 
neutral  ? " 

A  certain  part  of  me,  quite  tranquil, 
restored  to  serenity,  and  almost  cliildlike, 
came  back  again  there  in  the  evenings  in 
this  little  room  so  sweetly  silent,  at  this 
table  where  mamma  and  Aunt  Claire 
worked  ;  and  if  now  and  then  I  remember, 
with  a  dumb,  internal  emotion,  that  I  had 
had  an  Oriental  heart,  an  Afiican  heart, 
and  a  heap  of  other  hearts  besides — that 
I  had  dreamed,  under  different  suns,  dreams 
and  fancies  without  number — all  this  now 
appeared  to  me  very  remote,  and  forever 
done  with.  And  this  past  of  wanderings 
made  me  enjoy  more  completely  the  pres- 
ent hour,  with  its  repose,  this  entr'acte  in 
that  strictly  private  and  domestic  side  of 
my  life,  which  would  astonish  so  many 
people,  and  perhaps  make  them  smile. 
With  a  sincerity  that  for  the  minute  was 
complete,  I  said  to  myself  that  I  would 
never  go  away  again,  that  nothing  in  the 
world  was  as  good  as  the  peace  of  being 


A  STORY  OP  TWO  CATS.  ^5 

just  tliere,  and  in  finding  over  again  some 
of  tlie  emotions  of  one's  young  soul;  of 
feeling  around  one,  in  this  nest  of  child- 
liood,  tlie  indefinable  sense  of  protection 
against  notliingness  and  death ;  of  divining 
throijgli  the  glass  of  the  window,  athwart 
the  darkness  of  the  foliage,  and  under  the 
winter  moonlight,  the  courtyard,  which  in 
early  days  was  regarded  as  almost  the 
whole  earth,  and  which  has  remained  just 
the  same,  with  its  ivy,  its  little  rooks,  and 
its  old  Avails,  and  which  might,  mon  Dwu  ! 
regain  once  more  in  my  eyes  its  importance, 
its  vastness  of  the  olden  days,  and,  perhaps, 
be  peopled  once  again  in  the  same  dreams ! 
Above  all  this,  I  said  to  myself  that  nothing 
in  the  great  wide  world  was  worth  the  sweet 
joy  of  looking  at  mamma  and  Aunt  Claire, 
seated  at  their  worktable,  leaning  toward  the 
flowered  tablecloth,  with  their  caps  of  black 
lace  and  the  plumes  of  their  white  locks. 

Ah !  one  evening  I  can  recall  there  was 
a  real  cat  scene.  Even  to-day  I  cannot  think 
of  it  without  lauo^hino^. 


96        THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

It  was  a  frosty  niglit  about  Cliristmas. 
In  the  midst  of  the  profound  silence,  we  had 
heard  passing  over  the  roofs,  across  the  cohl 
and  quiet  sky,  a  flight  of  wild  geese  which 
were  emigi'ating  to  other  climes.  It  was 
like  the  distant  noise  of  a  shooting-gallery — 
those  sharp  and  multitudinous  voices  that 
shouted  aloud  in  the  void,  and  then  were 
soon  lost  in  the  airy  distance.  "  Do  you 
hear?  do  you  hear?"  said  Aunt  Claire 
to  me,  with  a  little  smile  and  an  affectation 
of  dread,  in  ridicule  of  me ;  for  in  my 
childhood  I  was  greatly  frightened  by  tliese 
nocturnal  flights  of  birds.  To  hear  it  one 
must  have,  indeed,  a  quick  ear  and  be  in 
a  silent  })lace. 

Calm  then  returned,  and  so  completely 
that  one  could  hear  the  crackling  moan  of 
the  wood  in  the  fireplace,  and  the  regular 
breathing  of  the  two  cats  seated  in  the 
corner  of  the  hearth. 

Suddenly  a  certain  large,  yellow  tom- 
cat, whom  White  Moumoutte  detested,  but 
who,  nevertheless,  persecuted  her  with  his 


A  STORY  OF  TWO  CATS.  97 

attentions,  appeared  behind  the  glass  look- 
ing into  the  courtyard,  standing  out  in  the 
lio;ht  from  the  black  back2:round  of  the 
foliage,  and  looked  at  Moumoutte  with  a 
brazen  and  yet  bewildered  air,  and  with  a 
formidable  and  provoking  "  miaou ! "  Then 
Moumoutte  jumped  to  the  window,  like  a 
tennis-ball,  and  there,  nose  to  nose,  on  either 
side  of  the  window,  there  was  a  splendid 
battle — a  volley  of  frightful  insults  in  voices 
hoarse  with  rage,  violent  raps  and  slaps 
across  the  pane,  which  made  a  frightful  up- 
roar, but,  of  course,  produced  no  effect.  Oh  ! 
the  terror  of  mamma  and  Aunt  Claire,  jump- 
ing from  their  seats  at  the  first  mtyment  of 
sui'prise ;  and,  then,  the  hearty  laughter !  It 
was  irresistible — the  comic  effect  of  all  this 
sudden  and  absurd  tumult,  succeeding  to 
a  meditative  silence  so  deep ;  and  especially 
the  look  of  the  yellow  tom-cat,  slapped  and 
discomfited,  whose  eyes  flamed  so  comically 
behind  the  glass  of  the  ^vindow. 

In  those  times,  the  putting  to  bed  of  the 
cats  was  one  of  the  important — I  had  almost 


98        THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

said,  primordial — operations  of  the  house. 
They  were  not  allowed,  like  so  many  other 
cats,  to  pass  their  nights  wandering  about 
in  the  foliage  or  the  woods,  in  the  con- 
templation of  the  stars  and  the  moon. 
On  such  questions  we  had  principles  in 
regard  to  which  we  allowed  no  com- 
promise. 

The  operation  consisted  in  placing  them 
in  a  granary  at  the  bottom  of  the  courtyard, 
in  a  shed  of  a  house  which  stood  apart,  was 
very  old,  and  hidden  under  the  ivy,  the 
vines,  and  the  glycines.  Tliis  happened  to 
be  in  Sylvester's  quarters  and  next  his  room  ! 
Thus,  every  evening,  all  three  took  their  de- 
parture together,  the  Moumouttes  and  he. 
When  each  day — days  to  which  I  paid  no 
heed  then,  for  which  I  have  often  wept 
since — ^when  each  day  closed  and  was  lost 
in  the  abyss  of  time,  this  serv^ant,  who  had* 
become  almost  a  member  of  the  family, 
was  called,  and  mamma  said,  with  a  half- 
joking  air,  amused  at  the  sacerdotal  aii* 
with  which  these  high  functions  were  pre- 


A  STORY  OF  TWO  CATS.  99 

formed,  "  Sylvester,  it  is  time  to  put  your 
cats  to  bed." 

At  the  veiy  iii*st  words  of  tlie  sentence, 
even  though  they  were  pronounced  in  a 
low  tone  of  voice,  AVhite  Moumoiitte 
cocked  her  ear  anxiously.  Then,  when 
she  was  convinced  that  she  had  heard 
aright,  she  jumped  dowu  from  her  chair, 
and,  ^vith  an  air  at  once  important  and 
agitated,  she  ran  by  herself  to  the  door,  in 
order  to  go  in  front,  and  to  do  so  on  foot, 
never  allowing  herself  to  be  earned — wish- 
ing to  enter  into  her  bed-chamber  of  her 
own  free-will  or  not  at  all. 

The  Chinese,  on  the  contrary,  schemed  to 
avoid,  if  possible,  leaving  this  cosy  room ; 
jumped  down  very  quietly,  crept  along  the 
floor  very  softly,  and  bent  down  so  as  to 
appear  smaller,  and,  looking  from  the  cor- 
ner of  her  eye  to  see  if  she  had  escaped 
notice,  hid  herself  under  a  piece  of  furni- 
ture. Big  Sylvester,  then,  who  had  learned 
all  these  ways  long  ago,  asked,  with  his 
boyish  smile,  "  Where  are  ^'^ou,  Chiaese  ? 


100     THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

I  know  well  enough  you  are  not  far  away." 
Immediately  she  answered  him  with  a  purr, 
understanding  that  it  was  useless  to  make 
any  further  pretenses,  then  allowed  herself 
to  be  taken  up,  and  was  carried  out,  seated 
very  tenderly  astride  the  broad  shoulder  of 
Sylvester. 

The  procession  at  last  was  ready  to 
start:  in  front  White  Moumoutte,  inde- 
pendent and  proud  ;  in  the  rear,  Sylvester, 
who  said,  "  Good-evening,  sir,  and  ladies," 
and  who,  carrying  in  one  hand  his  lantern 
to  light  the  coui-tyard,  held  invaiiably  in 
the  other  the  long  gray  tail  of  the  Chinese 
as  it  lay  on  his  chest. 

As  a  rule,  White  Moumoutte  went  with 
docility  along  the  path  that  led  to  the  gran- 
aiy.  But  sometimes,  at  certain  phases  of 
the  moon,  the  spirit  of  vagabondage  seized 
her,  or  she  had  a  fancy  to  go  to  sleep  at  the 
angle  of  some  roof  or  on  the  top  of  some 
solitary  pear-tree,  in  the  beautiful  freshness 
of  December,  which  was  in  contrast  to  the 
heat  she  had  enjoyed  all  the  day  in  a  com- 


A  STORY  OF  TWO   GATS.  101 

fortable  arincliair.  When  this  happened, 
Sylvester  made  his  reappeai'ance,  with  a 
comic  face  suitable  to  the  occasion — still 
with  his  lantern  in  his  hand,  and  with  the 
tail  of  the  docile  Chinese,  squatted  against 
his  neck.  "  White  Moumoutte  doesn't 
want  again  to  go  to  bed."  "  What  ? "  Aunt 
Claire  would  exclaim  indignantly.  "  Ah  ! 
we  shall  see."  And,  then,  she  would  go 
out  herself  to  try  the  effect  of  her  author- 
ity, calling  out  "  Moumoutte  ! "  in  her  poor, 
dear  voice,  which  I  feel  as  if  I  heard  still, 
and  whose  sound  was  taken  uj)  and  pro- 
longed, in  the  silence  of  the  gardens  and  in 
sonorous  echoes  on  a  winter's  night.  But 
no.  White  Moumoutte  would  not  obey. 
From  the  top  of  a  tree  or  of  a  wall  she 
would  content  herself  with  lookincj  down  at 
us,  cunningly  seated,  her  fur  making  a  white 
spot  in  the  darkness,  and  her  eyes  shin- 
ing like  particles  of  phosphorus.  "Mou- 
moutte, Moumoutte !  Ah,  the  wretched 
creature  !  It  is  a  shame,  miss — such  con- 
duct is  really   shameful." 


102     THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

Then  mamma  went  out  in  her  turn, 
afraid  of  the  effect  of  the  bitter  cold  on 
Aunt  Claire,  and  anxious  to  make  her  come 
in ;  then,  a  moment  after,  I  followed  to 
bring  the  other  two  in.  And  then,  when 
we  saw  ourselves  all  gathered  together  in 
the  courtyard  on  a  frosty  night — Sylvester 
among  the  rest,  holding  the  Chinese  by 
the  tail — and  all  set  at  defiance  by  this 
Moumoutte  perched  up  aloft,  we  could  not 
help  laughing  at  our  own  expense;  the 
laugh  beginning  with  Aunt  Claire,  and 
communicating  itself  at  once  to  all  of  us. 
Indeed,  I  have  always  doubted  that  there 
were  in  the  whole  world  two  other  old 
people — alas !  they  were  very  old — who 
had  such  a  faculty  for  laughing  frankly 
with  young  people,  or  who  understood  so 
well  the  art  of  being  amiable,  of  being 
thoroughly  gay.  So  much  so  that  I  have 
never  had  such  fun  with  anybody  as  with 
them,  and  all  about  such  insignificant 
things,  an  in^esistibly  comic  side  to  which 
they  would  find  out  in  a  way  of  their  own. 


A  STORY  OF  TWO   CATS.  103 

This  Moumoutte  was  certainly  deter- 
mined to  have  the  last  word.  We  all  re- 
entered, rather  mystified,  the  small  room, 
which  had  been  chilled  by  the  open  doors. 
and  went  to  our  respective  rooms  by  a 
series  of  stairs  and  of  somber  passages. 
And  Aunt  Claire,  seized  with  a  renewal  of 
her  anger,  before  she  entered  her  own 
room,  standing  at  her  door  exclaimed,  as 
she  bade  me  good-night :  "  All  very  well, 
but  what  have  you  to  say  for  her — this 
cat?" 

XXI. 

The  existence  of  a  cat  can  go  on  for 
twelve  or  fifteen  years  if  no  accident  hap 
pen. 

The  two  Moumouttes  lived,  still  to- 
gether, to  brighten  another  delicious  sum- 
mer. They  enjoyed  once  again  their  hours 
of  ceaseless  reverie  in  the  company  of 
Suleima  (that  eternal  tortoise,  whom  the 
long  succession  of  years  had  no  power  to 
age),  between  the  cactus  in  bloom,  and  on 


104     THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

the  stones  of  the  coui'tyard,  warmed  by 
the  hot  sun.  Or  they  sat  alone  on  the  top 
of  the  old  wall,  in  the  annual  confusion  of 
the  honeysuckle  and  the  white  roses. 
They  had  several  little  ones,  who  had 
been  brought  up  with  tenderness  and 
placed  advantageously  in  the  neighbor- 
hood. Even  those  of  the  Chinese  had 
been  easily  disjwsed  of  and  were  much 
in  request,  because  of  the  originality  of 
their   looks. 

They  also  lived  through  another  winter, 
and  were  able  to  enjoy  once  again  their 
long  sleeps  at  the  corner  of  the  fireplace, 
their  profound  meditations  before  the 
changing  aspect  of  the  braziers  and  the 
flames. 

But  this  was  the  last  season  of  their 
happiness ;  and  immediately  after,  their 
sad  decline  began.  In  the  following 
spring  some  indefinable  maladies  began  to 
disorganize  their  two  queer  little  persons, 
although  they  were  still  of  an  age  to 
promise   several  years   more   of  life. 


A  STORY  OF  TWO  CATS.  105 

Chinese  Moiimoutte,  wlio  was  tlie  first 
attacked,  sliowed,  in  the  first  instance, 
symptoms  of  mental  trouble,  of  black 
melancholy — regrets,  perhaps,  for  her  dis- 
tant Mongolian  home.  Refusing  to  eat  or 
drink,  she  made  prolonged  retreats  to  the 
top  of  the  wall,  remaining  in  the  same 
place  for  whole  days  without  moving, 
answering  to  our  calls  with  piteous  looks 
and  plaintive  little  "  miaous." 

White  Moumoutte,  also,  in  the  first  fine 
days,  had  begun  to  languish,  and  in  April 
both  were  really  ill. 

Veterinaiy  surgeons,  who  were  called  in 
for  consultation,  ordered  seriously  impossi- 
ble things.  For  one,  pills  morning  and 
evening,  and  poultices  on  the  stomach ;  to 
shave  them  quite  bare,  and  bathe  them 
twice  a  day  in  plenty  of  water !  S3dvester 
himself,  who  adored  them,  and  could  make 
them  obey  when  nobody  else  could,  de- 
clared that  the  thing  was  impossible.  Then 
we  applied  for  remedies  to  skillful  old 
women ;  some  "  wise  women  "  were  called 


106     THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

in,  and  their  prescriptions  were  adopted; 
but   nothing   came   of   it. 

They  were  botli  going  to  leave  us,  our 
Moumouttes !  We  felt  a  deep  pity  for 
them ;  but  neither  the  fine  spring  nor  the 
beautiful  sun,  when  it  came  back  again, 
could  drag  them  out  of  the  torpor  of  death. 

One  morning  when  I  came  home  after  a 
journey  to  Paris,  Sylvester  said  to  me 
sadly,  as  he  took  my  bag,  "  The  Chinese  is 
'dead,  sir." 

For  three  days  she  had  disappeared — 
she  who  had  been  s6  regular  in  her  habits, 
and  never  left  the  house.  Without  doubt, 
feeling  her  end  near,  she  had  gone  away 
for  good,  obeying  that  feeling  of  exquisite 
cind  supreme  delicacy  which  impels  certain 
animals  to  hide  themselves  in  their  dying 
hour.  "  She  remained,  sir,  the  whole  week 
perched  up  there  in  the  red  jessamine,  not 
even  coming  down  to  eat.  She  always, 
however,  answered  when  we  spoke  to  her, 
but  in  such  a  weak  voice  ! " 

Where,  then,  had  she  gone  to  pass  her 


A  STORY  OF  TWO  CATS.  107 

last  sad  hour,  poor  Chinese  Moumoutte? 
Perhaps,  in  her  ignorance  of  everything, 
she  had  gone  among  strangers  who  would 
not  allow  her  to  pass  her  last  hour  in 
peace  ;  who  perhaps  hunted  her,  tormented 
her;  who  perhaps  threw  her  on  to  the 
dunghill !  I  should,  indeed,  have  pre- 
ferred to  have  heard  that  she  had  died  in 
our  home;  my  heart  grew  heavy  as  I 
thought  of  that  queer  human  look  of  hers 
— so  full  of  appeal,  so  full  of  that  desire 
for  affection  which  she  had  no  power  to 
express — which  had  sought  my  eyes  with 
those  same  anxious  questionings  that  she 
had  never  been  able  to  put  into  words. 
Who  knows  what  mysterious  anguish  may 
penetrate  into  the  little  confused  souls  of 
animals  in  theii'  dying  hour  ? 

xxn. 

As  if  bad  luck  had  fallen  upon  our  cats, 
White  Moumoutte  also  seemed  to  approach 
her  end. 

By  one  of  the  capnces  which  possess  the 


108     THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

dying,  she  had  chosen  as  her  last  home  my 
dressing  room,  on  a  certain  couch  whose 
rose  color  had  doubtless  pleased  her.  We 
took  her  some  food  there — a  little  milk, 
which  she  barely  touched.  But,  neverthe- 
less, she  gave  us,  when  we  entered,  a  look 
that  showed  she  was  pleased,  and  she  even 
uttered  a  feeble  purr  when  we  stroked  her 
as  a  caress. 

Then,  one  fine  morning,  she  disappeared 
also — clandestinely,  as  the  Chinese  had 
done — and  we  thought  she  would  never 
return. 

xxnL 

She  was  to  reappear,  however,  and  I 
recollect  how  sad  that  reappearance  was. 

It  was  about  three  days  after,  in  one  of 
those  periods  of  early  June,  which  radiate 
and  glow  with  the  utter  calm  of  the  air — de- 
ceptive in  their  appearance  of  eternal  dura- 
tion, melancholy  to  those  beings  who  are 
destined  to  die.  Our  courtyard  put  forth 
all  its  leaves,  all  its  flowers,  all  its  roses  on 


A  STORY  OF  TWO  CATS.  109 

the  walls,  as  it  had  done  in  so  many  Junes 
in  the  past.  The  martlets  and  the  swallows, 
intoxicated  by  the  light,  wheeled  with  cries 
of  joy  in  the  deep  blue  sky.  There '^was 
everywhere  a  festival  of  the  things  that 
have  no  life  and  of  the  volatile  creatures 
that  have  no  dread  of  death. 

Aunt  Claire,  who  was  walking  there, 
watching  the  growth  of  the  flowers,  called 
me  suddenly,  and  her  voice  showed  that 
something  extraordinary  had  happened. 

"  Oh !  come  here  and  see ;  our  poor 
Moumoutte  has  returned!" 

And  she  was,  in  fact,  there  ;  come  back 
again,  like  a  sad  phantom,  with  her  coat 
already  stained  by  earth,  and  half-dead. 
Who  can  tell  what  feeling  had  brought  her 
back  ?  Some  reflection,  perhaps ;  a  failure 
of  courage  at  the  last  hour,  the  craving  to 
see  us  once  ao-ain  before  she  died. 

With  great  difliculty  she  had  crossed 
over  the  little  wall  so  familiar  to  her,  which 
once  she  had  jumped  over  in  two  bounds 
when  she  returned  from  her  police  duties 


1 10     TEE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATB. 

on  the  outside  and  had  slapped  some  tom- 
cat or  corrected  some  tabby.  Breathless 
from  her  severe  struggles  to  return,  she 
remained  half-lying  on  the  moss  and  the 
new  grass  at  the  side  of  the  pool,  trying  to 
stoop  down  to  get  a  mouthful  of  the  fresh 
water.  And  her  looks  implored  us,  called 
us  to  her  aid.  "  Do  you  not  see,  then,  that 
I  am  about  to  die  ?  Can  you  do  nothing 
to  prolong  my  existence   a  little  ? " 

There  were  presages  of  death  everywhere 
on  this  beautiful  June  morning,  under  this 
calm  and  superb  sun.  Aunt  Claire,  bent 
toward  the  dying  cat,  appeared  to  me,  all 
of  a  sudden,  so  aged,  weaker  than  ever  be- 
fore, ready  also  to  soon  depart. 

We  decided  to  take  Moumoutte  back 
into  my  dressing  room,  on  the  same  rose- 
colored  couch  which  she  had  chosen  in  the 
preceding  week,  and  which  had  seemed  to 
please  her.  And  I  promised  to  watch  her, 
so  as  to  prevent  her  from  running  away 
again — at  least,  until  her  bones  found  a 
resting-place   in   the  ground  of  our  court- 


A  STORY  OF  TWO  CATS.  Ill 

yard — and  tliat  she  might  not  be  thrown 
on  some  dunghill,  as  liappened  doubtless  to 
that  other  one,  my  poor  little  companion 
from  China,  whose  anxious  look  still  pur- 
sued me.  I  took  her  into  my  anns,  with 
extreme  precautions,  and,  contraiy  to  her 
usual  custom,  she  allowed  herself  to  be 
carried  this  time,  completely  confiding  in 
me,  with  her  drooping  head  supported  on 
my  arm. 

On  the  rose-colored  couch,  soiling  every- 
thing, she  held  out  for  some  days  still — for 
cats  die  hard.  June  continued  to  blaze 
through  the  house  and  in  the  gardens 
around  us. 

We  often  went  to  see  her,  and  she  always 
tried  to  raise  herself,  so  as  to  do  the  honors  of 
the  place  to  us,  her  look  grateful  and  moved, 
her  eyes  telling  as  plainly  as  could  human 
eyes  the  existence  inside  her,  and  the  an- 
guish of  what  we  call  soul. 

One  morning  I  found  her  stiff,  her  eyes 
glassy,  reduced  to  a  dead  creature,  some- 
thing to  be  thrown  away.     Then  I  ordered 


112     777^  BOOK  OF  PIT7  AND  OF  DEATH. 

Sylvester  to  dig  a  hole  in  a  bend  in  the 
courtyard,  at  the  foot  of  an  arbutus  tree. 
Where  had  that  light  which  I  had  seen 
through  the  eyes  of  the  dying  cat  gone 
to  ?  What  had  become  of  that  small  un- 
quiet flame  from  within  ? 

XXIV. 

The  burial  of  White  Moumoutte  in  the 
quiet  courtyard  took  place  under  the 
beautiful  sky  of  June,  in  the  full  sunshine 
of  two  o'clock. 

At  the  spot  indicated  Sylvester  digs  out 
the  earth,  then  stops,  looking  into  the 
bottom  of  the  hole,  and  leans  down  to  take 
out  of  it  with  his  hand  something  which 
had  surprised  him. 

"  What  is  this  ? "  he  asked,  shaking  some 
small  white  bones  which  he  had  just  per- 
ceived.    "  Is  it  a  hare  ?  " 

It  was  the  remains  of  an  animal,  cer- 
tainly— those  of  ray  Senegal  cat,  a  Mou- 
moutte from  the  olden  time,  my  companion 
in  Africa,  who  had  also  been  much  loved, 


A  STORY  OF  TWO  CATS.  113 

whom  I  had  buried  there  a  dozen  years 
ago,  and  then  forgotten  in  the  abyss  in 
which  are  heaped  up  all  the  things  and 
beings  which  have  disappeared.  And 
while  I  looked  at  these  little  bones  mingled 
with  earth,  these  little  legs  now  mere 
white  sticks,  this  collection  which  still  gave 
an  impression  of  the  hind-quarters  of  an 
animal  seen  from  behind,  I  suddenly  re- 
membered, with  an  inclination  to  smile  and 
yet  a  slight  oppression  of  the  heart,  a  scene 
which  I  had  foi'gbtten  entirely — a  certain 
moment  when  I  had  seen  the  same  skele- 
ton of  this  cat's  back — then  provided  with 
agile  muscles  and  a  silky  coat — fly  before 
me  comically,  and  scamper  oft'  with  its  tail 
in  the  air,  and  frightened  to  death. 

It  was  on  a  day  when,  with  the  obstinacy 
characteiistic  of  the  race,  she  had  got  up 
on  a  piece  of  furniture  which  had  been 
forbidden  to  her  twenty  times,  and  had 
broken  a  vase  there  which  I  greatly  valued. 
I  first  smacked  her,  and  then,  my  anger 
not  being  yet  exhausted,  I  had  aimed  at 


1 1 4     THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DBA  TIL 

her,  as  I  followed  her,  a  kick — which  was 
rather  brutal.  She  who  had  been  slightly 
surprised  by  the  smack,  understood,  from 
the  kick  which  followed,  that  this  was  a 
case  of  a  serious  declaration  of  war.  It 
was  then  that  she  had  scampered  off  so 
quickly  with  all  her  limbs,  her  tail  like  a 
plume  floating  in  the  wind.  Then,  having 
taken  refuge  under  a  piece  of  furniture,  she 
"had  turned  round  to  give  me  a  look  of  re- 
proach and  of  distress,  believing  herself 
ruined,  betrayed,  murdered  by  him  whom 
she  loved,  and  into  whose  hands  she  had 
confided  her  lot.  And  as  my  eyes  still 
retained  their  wicked  expression,  she  had 
uttered  her  wild  howl,  that  unique  and 
sinister  "  miaou  "  of  cats  when  they  believe 
themselves  about  to  be  killed.  All  my 
anger  suddenly  disappeared ;  I  called  her, 
caressed  her,  calmed  her  on  my  knees,  still 
frightened  and  panting.  Ah  !  that  last  dis- 
tressful cry  of  an  animal,  even  though  it  be 
but  that  of  a  poor  cow  which  they  have 
just    taken    to   the   slaughterhouse,   even 


A  STORY  OF  TWO   CATS.  115 

thougli  it  be  but  that  of  a  poor  rat  which 
a  bulldog  holds  between  his  teeth — that 
Gvj  which  no  longer  hopes  for  anything, 
which  is  addressed  to  nobody — which  is 
like  a  last  grand  remonstrance  to  Nature 
herself,  an  appeal  to  some  unconscious 
spirits  of  pity  in  the  air! 

Two  or  three  bones  buried  at  the  foot 
of  a  tree — that  was  all  that  remained  of 
those  hindquarters  of  a  Moumoutte  whom 
I  remember  in  the  full  of  life,  and  so 
funny.  And  its  flesh,  its  little  person,  its 
attachment  to  me,  its  great  fright  on  a 
certain  day,  its  cry  of  anguish  and  re- 
proach— in  short,  all  that  was  around  those 
bones — has  become  a  little  earth. 

When  the  hole  was  made  to  the  proper 
depth,  I  went  up  for  the  Moumoutte 
which  lay  stiff  up  there  on  my  rose-colored, 
couch. 

When  I  came  down  with  the  little  bur- 
den, I  found  mamma  and  Aunt  Claire  in 
the  courtyard,  seated  on  a  bench  in  the 
shadow,  with  an  affectation  of  having  come 


116     THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

there  by  accident,  and  of  speaking  of  some- 
thing  or  other.  To  meet  expressly  for 
this  burial  of  a  cat  would  have  apj^eared, 
even  to  ourselves,  rather  ridiculous,  would 
have  made  us  smile  in  spite  of  ourselves. 

Never  was  there  a  more  dazzling  June 
day,  never  a  warmer  silence,  broken  by 
such  a  gay  buzzing  of  insects.  The  court- 
yard was  all  flowery,  the  rose  trees  covered 
in  roses.  The  calm  of  a  village,  of  the 
country,  reigned  in  the  gardens  around ; 
the  swallows  and  the  martins  slept ;  only 
the  everlasting  tortoise  Suleima,  grown 
livelier  as  the  heat  increased,  wandered 
lightly  and  promiscuously  about  on  the 
old  sunny  stones.  Everything  was  a  prey 
to  the  melancholy  of  skies  that  were  too 
tranquil,  of  weather  too  fair,  and  to  the 
heaviness  of  the  middle  of  the  day.  Amid 
so  much  fresh  verdure,  joyous  and  dazzling 
light,  the  two  dresses  of  mamma  and  Aunt 
Claire,  both  alike,  made  two  spots  in- 
tensely black.  Their  heads,  with  their 
white  glossy  hair,  were   bent,  as  though 


A  STORT  OF  TWO   CATS.  '    117 

they  were  a  little  tired  of  having  seen  and 
reseen  so  often — so  very  often,  almost 
eighty  times — the  treacherous  renewal  of 
all  life.  The  plants,  the  things,  seemed  to 
sing  cruelly  the  triumph  of  their  perpetual 
renewal,  wdthout  pity  for  the  fragile  beings 
who  heard  them,  already  saddened  by  the 
anticipation  of  their  inevitable  end. 

I  put  Moumoutte  at  the  bottom  of  the 
hole,  and  her  coat,  white  and  black,  dissap- 
peared  immediately  under  some  shovelfuls 
of  earth.  I  was  glad  that  I  had  succeeded 
in  keeping  her,  and  in  preventing  her  from 
going  to  die  elsewhere,  as  had  the  other 
one.  At  least,  she  would  turn  to  dust 
among  us,  and  in  that  courtyard  where  so 
long  she  had  laid  down  the  law  to  the 
cats  of  the  neighborhood,  where  she  had  so 
often  lounged  in  the  summer  on  the  old 
walls  with  their  white  roses ;  and  where  in 
the  winter  nights,  at  the  hour  when  she 
would  make  her  capricious  choice  of  a  bed, 
her  name  had  resounded  so  often  in  the  si- 


118   ■  THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

lence  as  it  was  called  aloud  by  the  aged 
voice  of  Aunt  Claire. 

It  seemed  to  me  as  if  her  death  were 
the  beginning  of  the  end  with  the  dwellers 
in  the  house.  In  my  mind,  this  Mou- 
moutte  was  linked,  like  a  plaything  that 
had  been  a  long  time  in  use,  with  those 
two  well-beloved  guardians  of  my  fireside, 
seated  there  on  that  bench  where  she  had 
so  often  kept  them  company  while  I  was 
absent  far  away.  My  regret  was  less  for 
the  poor  incomprehensible  and  faint  little 
soul  than  for  the  period  that  had  come  to 
an  end.  It  was  as  if  it  were  ten  years  of 
our  own  life  which  we  had  just  buried  in 
the  earth. 


THE  WORK  AT  PEN-BRON. 


THE  WORK  AT  PEN-BRON. 

I  AM  astonished  at  myself,  at  my  giving 
my  advocacy  to  tliis  work,  wliicli  is  alto- 
gether out  of  my  line,  and  which  at  first 
sight,  besides,  rather  I'epelled  me.  I  am 
astonished  still  more  that  I  do  it  with  a 
strong  sense  of  conviction,  ^vith  a  real  de- 
sire to  be  heard,  to  pei'suade,  to  carry  other 
people  away,  as  I  have  been  carried  aw  ay 
myself. 

This  autumn  a  highly  respected  admiral 
wrote  to  me  and  begged  me  to  take  an  in- 
terest in  the  Pen-Bron  hospital,  the  name 
of  which  I  then  heard  for  the  first  time.  I 
confess  that  if  the  letter  had  not  been 
signed  by  this  excellent  sailor's  name  I 
should  have  thrown  it  into  the  wastepaper 
basket.  Good  Heavens !  Just  think  of  what 
I  was  asked  to  do,  and  for  w^hat  pui*pose  ! 
A  hospital  fo)'  scrofulous  children — what 

121 


122     THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

had  I  to  do  with  it  of  all  men  ?  Better  let 
them  die,  these  poor  little  things,  than  pre- 
serve them  for  a  miserable  life — and,  per- 
haps, from  children  that  would  be  a  dis- 
grace. We  had,  alas !  quite  ■  enough  al- 
ready of  weaklings  and  stragglers  in  our 
armies  in  France. 

Out  of  respect,  however,  for  him  who 
had  addressed  himself  to  me,  I  ans^vered 
that  I  would  do  my  best,  and  most  cordi- 
ally. And  I  wrote,  with  some  internal 
mistrust,  to  the  founder  of  Pen-Brou,  M. 
Pallu — whose  name  and  address  the  ad- 
miral had  given  me — that  I  was  at  his 
service. 

Two  or  three  days  afterward  M.  Pallu 
in  person  came  from  Nantes  to  see  me. 

At  first  his  enthusiastic  language  did  not 
move  me.  These  little  unhealthy  beings, 
these  scrofulous  subjects  of  which  he 
spoke,  still  gave  me  a  vague  sense  of  terror 
— a  certain  degree  of  pity,  mingled,  how- 
ever, mth  an  unsurmountable  disgust.  I 
listened  to  him    with    resignation.     They 


TEE  WORK  AT  PEN-BRON.  123 

had  brought  him  some  of  them,  he  told  me, 
from  the  gutter,  their  limbs  eaten  up  by 
horrible  wounds.  Some  who  were  almost 
falling  to  pieces  had  been  brought  in  little 
boxes ;  and  he  had  sent  them  back,  able  to 
walk,  at  the  end  of  a  few  months — had  re- 
stored their  bones,  given  them  back  some 
health  and  a  certainty  of  life. 

.  At  last,  tired  out,  I  interrupted  him,  a 
little  brusquely,  with  the  remark,  "  It 
would,  perhaps,  have  been  more  humane  to 
have  allowed  them  to  die." 

With  great  calmness  he  replied  that  he 
was  of  the  sauie  opinion. 

Then  I  began  to  see  that  here  was  a  man 
with  whom  I  should  find  something  in 
common.  This  work  had  another  side 
doubtless,  which  he  would  explain  to  me — 
a  loftier  scope  than  I  had  yet  divined. 

Little  by  little  he  told  me  things  of 
which  I  had  never  heard  before,  things 
that  frightened  me — of  the  progress  of 
this  disease,  the  veiy  name  of  which  brings 
disgrace ;  of   its  more   and  more  rapid  in- 


124     THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  BE  A  TH. 

crease,  in  recent  years  especially;  of  the 
sufferings,  the  physicial  impoverishing,  of 
the  children  in  great  cities  ;  in  fine,  that  at 
least  a  third  of  the  blood  of  France  was 
already  vitiated. 

Those  cures  which  had  been  effected  at 
Pen-Bron,  on  little  beings  who  were  sup- 
posed to  be  utterly  lost,  and  who  Avould 
remain  pitiably  weak,  had  to  him  only  a 
value  as  experiments.  They  showed  that 
this  evil,  whose  name  I  dare  not  even 
write,  was  curable — thoroughly  curable,  in 
certain  climates,  by  salt  and  by  the  sea. 
And  then  he  told  me  his  dream  of  extend- 
ing his  work,  of  making  it  something  vast 
and  universal,  of  attempting  the  renewal  of 
the  entire  race. 

"  To-day,"  he  said,  "  in  this  hospital 
which  we  have  founded  with  so  much 
difficulty,  and  which  can  accommodate  just 
one  hundred  children,  we  have  only  the  ref- 
use of  the  other  hospitals  in  France — poor 
little  morbid  phenomena  who  have  lived  in 
beds  for  years,  who  have  tired  out  all  the 


TEE  WORK  AT  PEN-BRON.  125 

doctors,  and  wlio  are  brought  to  us  in  ex- 
tremisj  wlien  there  is  no  longer  any  hope 
for  them.  But  if,  instead  of  a  hundred 
children,  we  could  receive  in  Pen-Bron 
thousands  and  thousands,  in  rows  of  large 
buildings  with  miles  of  frontage  all  along 
this  marvelous  sandy  peninsula,  where  the 
air  is  always  warm  and  impregnated  with 
salt — if  in  place  of  these  poor  little  beings 
whose  skin  is  pierced  with  deep  holes,  they 
brought  us  all  those  whom  the  malady  has 
scarcely  touched  as  yet,  all  those  who  are 
merely  threatened — if  they  could  send  to 
us  every  year  all  the  little  weaklings  and 
sickly  things  that  grow  up  wuthout  air  in 
the  factories  of  great  cities,  and  who  be- 
come afterward  scrofulous  soldiers,  whose 
children  will  be  still  more  pitiful — if  they 
could  all  come  here  at  the  age  when  the 
constitution  can  be  easily  strengthened — 
and  if  they  asked  from  the  sea  a  little  of 
that  strength  which  it  gives  to  sailors  and 

to  fisheiTuan " 

And  as  he  unfolded  his  idea  to  me,  as  he 


^26     THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

enlarged  it  to  me  with  burning  conviction, 
I  saw   rise  into   his   eyes   the  look  of  an  / 
apostle.     I   understood  that   the  work   to 
which  he  had  devoted  his  life  was  noble, 
French,  humanitarian. 

Then,  almost  won  to  his  side,  I  promised 
that,  before  I  tried  to  say  anything  about 
it  (I  have  never  been  able  to  speak  of  any- 
thing that  I  have  not  seen  with  my  own 
eyes),  I  would  go  myself  to  Pen-Bron,  and 
see  what  he  had  already  begun  to  do  there 
— on  those  "marvelous  sands,"  as  he 
called   them. 

Some  weeks  later,  at  the  end  of  Septem- 
ber, we  were  at  Croisic,  in  the  little  port 
crowded  with  fishing  boats.  Before  us  the 
sea-water  had  that  peculiarly  intense  blue 
which  it  always  assumes  in  places  where, 
under  the  influence  of  certain  currents,  it  is 
partially  salt  and  warm.  And  down  there 
— ^just  beyond  the  first  blue  shoals — there 
rises  an  old  mansion  with  turrets  which 
the  gales  have  whitened,  and  which  stands 


THE  WORK  A  T  PEN-BRON.  1 2 1 

alone  in  sands  that  look  as  if  they  formed 
a  complete  island.  This  is  Pen-Bron. 
But  never  did  a  hospital  look  less  like  one. 
It  was,  indeed,  difficult  to  realize  that  this 
gay  building,  open  to  all  winds,  could  con- 
tain within  it  so  many  poor  smitten  beings 
— so  many  terrible  and  rare  varieties  of  a 
horrible  disease. 

After  a  passage  of  a  few  minutes  a  boat 
brino-s  us  to  the  sands — which  are  not  an 
inlet,  as  they  appear  in  the  distance,  but 
are  the  end  of  a  long,  very  long,  and  nar- 
row peninsula — of  a  kind  of  endless  beach 
inclosed  between  the  ocean  and  some  salt 
lagoons  fed  by  the  sea.  Pen-Bron  is  there, 
surrounded  with  water  like  a  ship.  In 
front  of  its  walls  there  is  a  rudimentary 
garden,  which  is  swept  by  all  the  breezes 
of  the  open  sea,  but  where,  nevertheless, 
flowers  grow  in  the  sandy  flower  beds. 

About  sixty  children  are  outside — boys 
and  little  girls,  in  two  separate  groups. 
The  little  boys  play,  talk,  sing,  under  tlie 
superintendence   of   a   good  Sister  in  her 


128     THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

distinctive  cap ;  and  so  do  tlie  little  girls, 
with  the  exception  of  some  who  are  taller, 
and  who  are  seated  on  chairs  and  do  needle 
work.  And  this  is  how  it  is,  it  seems,  every- 
day, except  when  it  is  raining  heavily.  Liv- 
ing constantly  in  the  open  air,  the  boarders  of 
Pen-Bron  move  round  the  building,  accord- 
ing to  the  direction  of  tlie  wind  and  sun, 
looking  at  one  time  on  the  lagoon,  at 
another  on  the  oj^en  sea — always  breath- 
ing that  breeze  what  leaves  a  taste  of  salt 
on  the  lips.  And  really,  if  it  were  not 
that  one  sees  some  crutches  bearing  up 
poor  weak  little  limbs,  some  bandages  con- 
cealing half  the  face,  and,  leaning  against  the 
walls,  three  or  four  little  chairs  of  a  shape 
that  is  disquieting,  you  would  imagine 
that  you  had  come  to  an  ordinary  board- 
ing school  at  the  recreation  hour.  So  much 
was  this  the  case  that  I  felt  vanish  sud- 
denly that  kind  of  physical  horror,  of  un- 
reasoning distress,  which  contracted  my 
breast  at  the  first  sight  of  this  museum  of 
wretchedness. 


THE  WORK  AT  PEN-BRON.  129 

I  bave  now  but  a  feeling  of  curiosity  as 
I  approach  these  little  invalids.  From 
afar  I  see  them  playing,  just  like  any  other 
children  of  their  age.  And  yet  they  would 
not  be  here  unless  they  had  been  attacked 
— every  one  of  them,  without  exception — 
to  the  very  marrow  of  their  bones  by  some 
friojhtful  disease.  What  kind  of  faces 
must  they  have,  then  ? 

Mon  Dieu,  faces  just  like  anybody  else 
— sometimes  even,  to  my  great  surprise, 
faces  that  are  very  winning — round,  full, 
imitating  health.  And  how  they  are  sun- 
burnt, actually  scorched!  They  have  on 
their  cheeks  the  mark  of  the  sea,  just  like 
fishermen.  You  might  imagine  that  they 
had  stolen  from  the  children  of  sailors  that 
appearance  of  having  been  tanned  by  the 
wind  and  the  sun  which  make  them  look  so 
strong.  It  is  a  complete  surprise  to  find 
them  lookinsr  thus. 

When  one  comes  closer,  however,  there 
are  plenty  of  things  to  make  one  gi'oan. 
Under  the  broad  small  trousers  of  the  pat- 


130     TEE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

tern  conunon  in  the  country  you  see  limbs 
that  are  odiously  twisted — contorted  and 
twisted  thighs.  Under  the  small  waistcoat 
are  hard  corsets,  which  sustain  weakened 
spines  that  otherwise  would  fall  in;  and 
then  in  the  flesh  there  are  large  holes  which 
are  scarcely  closed,  hollow  and  horiible 
scars,  and  all  kinds  of  mysterious  phenom- 
ena of  a  very  mournful  order. 

But  laughing  gay ety  is  there  all  the  same 
in  almost  every  eye.  You  find  confidence 
and  hope  have  returned  to  these  poor 
anaemic  things,  and  they  give  you  the  impres- 
sion of  an  unexpected  return  of  life  into 
their  weak  limbs. 

M.  Pallu,  who  accompanies  me,  calls  them 
in  turn,  quite  proud  of  being  able  to  present 
them  to  me  with  their  healthy,  bronzed 
cheeks.  And  poor  children !  they  show 
me  their  scars  without  shame — and  each  one 
tells  me  the  story  of  his  lamentable  past. 
This  one  had  an  open  wound  in  his  side  for 
six  years,  below  the  arm.  The  hole  was  al- 
ways getting  deeper,  and  the  treatment  in 


THE  WORK  AT  PEN-BRON-  131 

the  hospitals  was  doing  no  good.  He  had 
been  in  the  Pen-Bron  only  four  or  five 
months,  and  it  was  all  closed,  all  cured. 
Smiling,  he  opened  his  little  shirt  to  show  me 
the  spot,  where  there  then  seemed  nothing 
but  a  long  scar,  a  little  red.  Another,  about 
ten  years  old,  had  just  spent  four  years  in  a 
hospital  bed,  stretched  in  a  kind  of  box,  with 
what  is  called  Pott's  disease,  of  which  I  had 
never  heard  before,  but  the  very  sound  of 
which  makes  me  cold.  It  is  a  disease  of  the 
spinal  cord.  The  rings  are  not  pei'fectly  at- 
tached to  one  another,  the  ligatures  are 
weakened,  and  thus  the  poor  little  body,  if 
left  to  itself,  would  fall  in  like  a  Venetian 
lamp,  which  you  take  down  and  fold  np. 
Well  now  the  child  who  had  this  disease  is 
standing  erect  before  me ;  they  have  taken 
oif  within  the  last  two  or  three  days  the 
corset  which  had  supported  his  back  when 
first  he  had  gone  out ;  he  has  no  further 
need  of  it,  and  even  his  chest  will  be  scarcely 
deformed. 
They  all  have  things  of  the  same  kind  to 


132     TUE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

sliow  me  and  to  tell  me,  and  this  tliey  do 
with  a  gay  simplicity,  with  an  air  of  abso- 
lute confidence  in  their  easy  and  complete 
recovery.  The  splendid  salt  air  of  Pen- 
Bron  cures  all  this  sinister  human  de- 
composition, almost  as  surely  as  the  warm 
winds  dry  up  putrid  sewers,  the  oozings 
and  the  moldiness  on  walls. 

We  now  enter  the  hospital,  which  dur- 
ing the  day  is  almost  empty.  It  is  an  old 
building,  was  formerly  a  salt  warehouse, 
and  has  now  been  transformed  by  M.  Pallu. 
To  carry  this  out,  he  must  have  had  a 
strong  will  and  tenacious  purpose.  The 
expenses  have  been  almost  entirely  covered 
by  subscriptions.  But  it  was  not  without 
trouble,  without  vexations  of  all  kinds,  that 
one  could  succeed  in  raising  one  hundred 
thousand  francs  for  such  a  work,  which  is 
not  very  inviting  at  first  sight. 

The  hospital  at  Pen-Bron  in  its  present 
state  holds  about  one  hundred  beds — and 
these,  children's  beds  scarcely  larger  than 


THE  WORK  AT  PEN-BRON.  133 

cradles.  The  halls,  all  white,  open  on  two 
sides  to  the  sea.  Just  as  if  one  were  in  a 
floatino:  house,  one  sees  throuo-h  the  win- 
dows  nothing  but  broad  marine  expanses, 
great  changing  horizons,  with  fishing  boats 
which  sail  past.  And  the  simple  chapel, 
with  its  oak  roof,  also  resembles  a  chapel 
on  board  a  vessel.  The  little  invalids  who 
have  recently  ari'ived,  and  who  are  not  yet 
able  to  go  out,  instead  of  gazing  on  large 
gray  walls,  as  in  the  ordinary  hospital, 
amuse  themselves  by  looking  from  their 
places  on  the  passing  boats,  and  receive 
even  in  their  beds  the  splendid  reviving  air 
of  the  open  sea.  In  contrast  with  boarders 
of  a  more  ancient  date,  these  newcomers 
have  a  pale  complexion,  the  transparency 
of  wax,  and  large  hollow  eyes. 

But  their  stay  inside  the  hospital  is  gen- 
erally not  very  long ;  as  quickly  as  possi- 
ble, and  at  all  risks,  they  send  them  out  to 
breathe  the  salt  air  of  the  sea.  They  have 
even  special  boats  on  which  they  put  them 
to  bed — a  kind  of  floating  bed  on  which 


134     THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

they  carry  tliem  on  the  lagoon.  Through 
an  open  window  they  show  me  down  be- 
low their  poor  singular  little  fleet,  which  is 
just  starting  out  from  the  shore,  towed  by 
a  barge.  Three  of  these  raft  beds  are  oc- 
cupied by  pale  children.  In  the  barge  is 
the  chaplain  who  superintends  them ;  he 
cames  a  book  from  which  he  reads  to  them 
during  the  long  hours  during  the  day  when 
they  have  to  lie  at  anchor. 

Among  those  who  cannot  yet  go  out  are 
several  who  are  certainly  very  emaciated, 
very  pale,  more  saddening  to  look  upon 
than  dead  children.  But  they  all  receive 
me  with  a  friendly  smile  ;  •  doubtless  they 
have  been  instructed  to  do  so.  Before  my 
aiTival  they  have  been  told  that  I  was 
someone  devoted  to  their  cause,  and  then 
in  their  ever  active  imaginations  they  have 
attributed  to  me,  perhaps,  some  beneficent 
powers  like  those  of  a  magician,  and  it 
seems  to  me  that  their  long,  kind  looks 
compel  me  to  do  all  that  I  can  for  their 
hospital.     Here    and    there    on  the   beds 


TEE  WORK  AT  PEN-BRON.  135 

there  are  playthings — very  simple  ones,  I 
should  add.  For  the  girls  there  are  dolls, 
or,  rather,  make-believe  dolls,  clothed  in 
dressing  go\^Tis  of  printed  calico.  Here,  a 
little  boy  of  four  or  five  years  of  age,  who 
has  his  two  legs  in  splints,  mth  weights 
attached  to  the  feet  to  prevent  his  crumb- 
ling bones  from  shrinking  up,  amuses  him- 
self by  drawing  up  in  line  little  paste- 
board soldiers  which  have  been  presented 
to  him  by  the  good  sister.  And  then  my 
eyes  are  arrested  and  charmed  by  the  sight 
of  a  beautiful  little  creature  of  about 
twelve  years  of  age,  white  and  rosy,  ^vith 
features  of  a  strange  refinement,  who  plays 
at  nothing,  but  who  appears  already  to 
dream  with  a  profound  melancholy,  her 
little  head  resting  on  its  scrupulously  clean 
and  white  pillow.  I  ask  what  is  the 
matter  with  this  little  being,  so  very  beau- 
tiful ;  they  tell  me  it  is  that  horrible  Pott's 
disease  at  its  last  stage,  and  they  fear  it  is 
too  far  gone  to  allow  of  its  cure. 

Her  looks  impress  me  strangely.     They 


136      THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

are  like  an  appeal,  a  sad  siipplieation,  a  cry 
of  despair,  wliicli  knows  everything,  and 
which  is  infinite.  And  then,  no  woi'd,  no 
tears  appeal  to  me  like  those  prayers  of 
anguish  which  at  certain  moments  flash 
out,  mute  and  brief,  from  the  eyes  of  the 
disinherited  of  all  classes — sick  children, 
old  men,  the  poor  and  the  abandoned,  or 
even  beaten  animals  that  tremble  and 
siiifer.  Ah,  that  poor  little  thing  !  And 
just  think  that  I  am  the  man  who  had 
said  that  it  were  better  to  allow  those 
children  of  Pen-Bron  to  die.  It  is  in  this 
vague  and  general  manner  that  you  say 
these  things  hefore  you  have  seen  them  with 
your  own  eyes  j  but  as  soon  as  it  comes 
home  to  you  in  the  individual  case,  you 
feel  immediately  that  this  cannot  be  done; 
that  it  would  be  monstrous.  And  then, 
seeing  it  is  possible  tp  prevent  it,  by  what 
right  would  you  send  to  the  mysterious 
unknown  of  death  those  little  bright  eyes, 
with  such  a  look  of  intelligence — those 
little   eyes,  wistful   and   suppliant,  which 


THE  WORK  AT  PEN-BROK  1 3 1 

have  scarcely  opened  upon  life!  Even 
though  the  idea  of  developing  this  hospital 
so  that  it  may  become  a  work  of  national 
regeneration  be  an  impracticable  chimera, 
the  task  of  bringing  back  to  health  a  few 
little  children  such  as  those  just  seen  is 
worth  the  trouble,  a  hundred  times  over, 
of  continuing  and  increasing  the  work. 

But  the  chimera  is  capable  of  realization 
— ^with  money ;  ah,  yes,  with  money,  with 
much  money.  Behind  the  existing  hospital 
there  is  this  almost  interminable  peninsula 
of  sand,  which  stretches  out  of  sight  like  a 
yellowish  ruby,  between  the  blue  waters 
of  the  sea  and  the  still  bluer  waters  of 
the  salty  lagoon.  It  is  there,  in  this  in- 
comparable situation,  that  M.  Pallu,  the 
founder  of  Pen-Bron,  dreams  of  extending 
over  miles  of  frontage  his  rows  of  white 
beds,  so  that  thousands  of  weakling  chil- 
dren may  come  and  acquire  the  swelling 
chests  and  the  hard  muscles  of  sailors. 

Let  nobody  imagine  for  a  moment  that 
I  have  lent  my  influence  by  mistake  to  a 


1 3  8     THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  BE  A  Til 

private  and  selfisli  speculation.  Oh  no; 
let  tliere  be  no  mistake  on  this  point.  He 
who  has  founded  Pen-Bron  has  spent  his 
money  as  well  as  his  energy  and  his  mind 
upon  it.  There  is  a  managing  committee 
which  receives  no  pay — a  committee  com- 
posed of  thoroughly  good  people,  who, 
when  there  is  any  deficit  in  the  accounts, 
make  it  up  out  of  their  own  purses. 
There  are  doctors  who  are  not  paid,  and 
who  come  there  every  day  from  Nantes, 
simply  out  of  their  benevolence.  There 
are  Sisters  of  Charity  who  are  admirable. 
And  here  is  a  little  point  which  will  give 
you  an  idea  of  the  character  of  the  Mother 
Superior :  For  want  of  money,  they  do 
not  burn  the  soiled  linen  ;  they  wash  it,  so 
as  to  be  able  to  use  it  again ;  and  on  the 
servant-women  refusing  to  do  this  terrible 
work,  this  sister  said,  quite  simply,  "  I  will 
wash  these  things  myself ! "  and  she  has 
washed  them  and  she  washes  them  every 
day,  during  the  hours  she  has  for  rest.     It 


THE  WORK  A T  PEN-BRON.  139 

is  just  an  entire  community  of  people 
with  good  hearts,  bound  together  by  a 
common  faith  in  the  work  they  have  be- 
gun, and  sustained  amid  their  terrible 
difficulties  by  the  marvelous  results  they 
have  already  attained.  They  have  built 
some  hopes  on  me,  and  on  what  I  could 
say  to  make  them  better  kno\^Ti ;  and  I 
tremble  lest  their  hopes  should  be  deceived, 
so  deeply  do  I  feel  that  their  admirable 
work  is  one  of  those  w^hich  at  first  sight 
are  not  attractive.  They  want  money  not 
only  to  undertake  the  great  work  of  which 
they  dream — the  regeneration  of  all  the 
children  of  France — ^but  even  to  meet  the 
most  pressing  cases  of  wretchedness. 
Every  day,  for  want  of  room,  they  are 
obliged  to  close  their  doors  to  parents  who 
come  and  beg  admission  for  their  children. 
Oh,  if  my  voice  could  only  be  heard ! 
If  only  I  could  get  them  some  subscrip- 
tions ;  or  if  I  could  only  induce  those  who 
will  not  be  convinced  by  me,  to  have  the 


140     TEE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

curiosity  during  their  excursions  to  the 
seaside  to  pay  a  visit  to  Pen-Bron  !  I  am 
sure  that  when  they  have  seen  they  will 
be  gained  over  to  the  cause,  as  I  was ;  and 
will  subscribe. 


IN  THE  DEAD   PAST. 


IN  THE  DEAD  PAST. 

The  past — all  the  accumulation  of  what 
has  gone  before  us — possesses  my  imagina- 
tion almost  without  cessation.  And  often 
I  have  the  desire — the  only  one  that  can 
never  be  realized,  and  that  is  impossible 
even  to  God — to  go  back,  if  it  were  only 
for  a  furtive  moment,  into  the  abyss  of  the 
days  that  have  gone  forever — into  the 
auroral  fi'eshness  of  the  more  or  less  remote 
past. 

By  the  partial  exercise  of  my  will,  the 
half-illusion  can  come  to  me  of  such  a  re- 
turn— especially  at  certain  special  hours, 
when,  for  instance,  I  jienetrate  into  regions 
that  have  not  changed  for  centuries,  into 
dwellings  that  have  remained  intact; 
where  skeletons,  now  scattered  in  Heaven 
knows  ^vliat  earth,  once  lived,  thought, 
smiled.     I  experience  it  also  when  I  find 

143 


144     THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

by  chance  tilings  which,  while  in  them- 
selves fragile  and  frail,  have  nevertheless 
preserved  themselves  miraculously  a  long 
time  after  the  beings  to  whom  they  belong 
have  disappeared  into  unrecognizable  dust. 
Then  I  see  again,  with  sufficient  clearness, 
in  my  mind's  eye,  personages  who  have 
disappeared — some  old,  some  delightfully 
young.  But  never  do  I  succeed  in  repro- 
ducing them  in  the  full  light  of  day.  The 
vague  twilight  in  which  they  usually  re- 
appear to  me  belongs  at  once  to  the  earliest 
morning  and  to  the  approaching  night — to 
the  strangely  fresh  hour  of  dawn  or  the  ex- 
piring hours  of  evening. 

My  nearest  ancestors — those  of  the  be- 
ginning of  this  century  or  of  the  end  of 
the  last — those  whose  faces  and  smiles  I 
have  learned  to  know  fi'om  their  portraits, 
whose  manners  and  habits,  some  of  whose 
very  phrases,  have  been  repeated  to  me, 
and  who,  besides,  lived  a  life  very  similar 
to  ours,  in  the  midst  of  well-known  things 
— these  I  see  sometimes,  but  always  in  the 


Ji\  THE  BEAD  PAST.  145 

spi'iiig    eveiiiDgs,    in    beautiful    twiliglits, 
limpid  and  embalmed  in  jessamine. 

1  find  infinite  cliarm  in  this  association 
wliicli  takes  place  in  my  mind  in  spite  of 
me  between  tlie  dead  past  and  tlie  evenings 
of  May  witli  tLeir  odor  of  flowei*s.  I  can 
explain  it,  besides,  quite  easily.  First,  tlie 
jasmin  is  an  old-fasliioned  plant.  The 
old  walls  in  our  family  Louse  in  tlie  He 
d'Oleron  have  been  carpeted  with  it  for 
two  or  three  centuiies.  And,  then,  one 
evening,  at  the  dawn  of  my  life,  when  I 
returned  from  a  walk  in  the  t^vilight,  in- 
toxicated with  the  odors  of  the  country,  of 
the  new  hay,  of  the  beautiful  verdure  that 
was  everywhere  appearing  again,  I  found 
my  grandmother  and  my  grandaunt.  Bertha, 
seated  in  the  bottom  of  the  courtyard, 
breathing  the  fresh  air  of  the  eveninsj,  in 
the  twilight  under  the  hanging  branches, 
in  which  one  could  distinguish  confusedly 
some  white  flowers;  these  were  the  ever- 
lasting jessamines.  They  were  just  talk- 
ing of  their  two  sisters,  who  had  died  by 


146     THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

accideut  veiy  young — somevvliere  about 
1820 — and  who  used,  it  appeared,  to  re- 
main out  in  this  court  in  the  spring  evenings 
and  sing  duets  to  the  accompaniment  of 
their  guitars.  Then  there  came  upon  me  a 
sudden  impression  of  the  past — the  first 
really  vivid  one  I  had  ever  received  since 
I  had  come  into  the  world — seizing  me  so 
as  almost  to  frighten  me,  and  with  a  whole 
volume  of  sensations  that  appeared  not  to 
belong  to  me  at  all. 

They  had  never  before  spoken  in  my 
presence  of  those  two  dead  girls,  and  I  ap- 
proached, shuddering,  to  listen  with  a  hun- 
gry terror  to  what  they  were  saying  about 
them.  Ah !  these  duets  which  they  sang — 
those  voices  of  former  days  which  vibrated 
in  this  same  spot,  and  in  just  such  May 
evenings.  They  are  nothing  but  dust  now 
— the  lips,  the  throats,  the  cords  that  had 
given  out  those  melodies  in  the  same  fresh 
tranquillity  of  the  twilight.  And  how  old 
they  were  also — those  ancestresses  of  mine, 
the  last  who  remembered  these  girls !     I 


IN  THE  DEAD  PAST.  147 

put  timid  questions  as  to  their  appearance. 
What  were  their  faces  like  ?  whom  did  they 
resemble?  Already  there  rose  up  in  my 
pathway  the  revolting  mystery  of  the  brutal 
annihilation  of  human  beings,  the  blind  con- 
tinuation of  families  and  races.  Ever  since, 
in  the  evenings  of  spring,  under  the  cradle 
of  jessamine,  I  have  thought  persistently  of 
those  two  young  girls — my  unknown  grand- 
aunts.  And  the  association  of  ideas,  of 
which  I  spoke  just  now,  was  thus  created 
forever  in  my  mind. 

Quite  recently,  on  an  evening  in  last 
May,  I  gazed  from  the  window  of  my  study 
on  the  beautiful  light  as  it  faded  little  by 
little  over  our  quiet  quarter  on  the  houses 
around,  that  to  me  are  so  familiar.  The 
swallows,  the  martins,  after  wheeling  round 
and  round  with  cries  of  ecstatic  joy,  had 
suddenly  grown  silent  all  together,  as  if  at 
a  signal  from  one  leader,  fi'ightened,  per- 
haps, by  the  growing  shadows  ;  one  by  one 
they  sought  their  nests  under  the  roofs,  leav- 


148      THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  UFA  TIL 

ing  the  meadows  of  tlie  sky  void — except 
for  scarcely  visible  bats.  A  remnant  of  the 
rosy  splendor  still  hovered  over  lis,  Just 
touching  the  tops  of  the  old  roofs  with 
light ;  then  it  rose  and  rose  till  it  was  lost 
in  the  profound  depths  of  the  sky.  Real 
night  was  approaching. 

An  odor  of  jessamine  suddenly  reached 
me  from  the  gardens  around ;  and  then  I 
began  to  dream  of  the  past,  but  of  that  past 
which  has  but  lately  gone ;  of  that  whose 
actors  still  retain  their  forms  under  the 
devouring  earth  and  fill  our  cemeteries  with 
their  coffins  almost  intact ;  men  who  wore 
on  their  necks  the  cravats  of  many  folds 
which  were  the  fashion  in  1830;  women 
who  arranged  their  hair  in  curl  papers — 
those  poor  remains  of  grandfathers  and 
grandmothers  tenderly  wept  for  and  now 
almost  forgotten.  Doubtless,  thanks  to  the 
immobility  of  small  provincial  towns,  this 
quarter  immediately  under  my  eyes  has 
scarcely  changed  since  the  past  days,  which 


IN  THE  BEAD  PAST.  149 

are  filling  my  imagination.  That  house 
opposite  has  remained  the  same;  it  was 
there  that  one  of  my  grandmothers  formerly 
lived.  And,  with  the  assistance  of  the 
darkness,  I  forced  myself  to  imagine  that 
the  present  moment  had  not  yet  been  born  ; 
and  that  the  date  of  the  actual  day  was 
sixty  or  eighty  years  ago.  If  the  door  of 
this  house  opposite  were  to  open,  and 
on  its  threshold  were  to  appear  that 
grandmother — whom  I  scarcely  knew — still 
young  and  pretty,  with  leg-of-mutton 
sleeves,  and  a  coiffure  unknown  to  this 
generation ;  if  other  fair  beings  also,  in 
the  dress  of  the  same  period,  were  to  walk 
out  and  people  the  streets  with  their  faint 
shadows ;  ah  !  what  a  charm,  what  a  melan- 
choly delight  it  would  it  be  to  see,  if  it  were 
for  but  a  moment,  the  same  quarter  in  the 
twilight  of  the  May  of  1820  or  1830 ;  to  see 
the  young  ladies  of  that  time  in  their  out- 
of-date  gai-ments  and  with  their  old-fash- 
ioned airs  and  graces  starting  out  for  their 


150     THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

walk,  or  coming  to  the  windows  to  catcli 
the  freshness  of  the  evening  air. 

It  happened  that,  on  the  following  night, 
I  saw  in  a  dream  all  that  I  had  brought 
before  my  imagination  during  that  reverie. 
Nightfall  was  at  hand,  toward  the  closing 
days  of  the  first  quarter  in  this  century,  in 
the  streets  of  my  native  town,  which  were 
scarcely  changed,  but  in  which  there  was  a 
somber  half-light.  I  was  taking  a  walk 
with  someone  of  my  own  generation ;  I 
could  not  tell  distinctly  who  it  was — it  was 
an  invisible  being,  a  pure  specter,  as  the  com- 
panions of  my  dreams  usually  are — it  was 
perhaps  my  niece,  or,  rather,  Leo,  at  all 
events  it  was  somebody  who  is  in  constant 
association  with  my  ideas,  and  haunted,  as 
I  am,  by  visions  of  the  past.  And  we 
looked  with  all  our  eyes  in  order  not  to 
lose  anything  of  this  moment,  which  we 
knew  to  be  rare,  unique,  fleeting,  incapable 
of  returning — a  moment  in  a  buried  epoch 
which  had   come   to   life   by   some  magic 


IN  THE  DEAD  FAST.  151 

artifice.  There  was  a  feeling,  too,  that  one 
could  not  count  on  the  stability  of  any- 
thing there.  Sometimes  the  images  died 
out  suddenly  for  just  half  a  second,  then 
reappeared,  then  died  out  once  again.  It 
was  like  some  pale,  shifting  phantas- 
magoria, which  an  effort  of  will,  very  diffi- 
cult to  keep  up,  had  succeeded  in  bringing 
to  life  to  move  across  the  dim  canvas  of  a 
shadowy  past.  We  hurried  forward  with 
some  feverishness  to  see — to  see  the  very 
utmost  possible  before  there  came  the 
stroke  of  the  mas-ician's  wand  that  would 
plunge  everything  once  more  into  eternal 
night.  We  tarried  before  we  started  for  our 
own  quarter,  in  the  hope  of  being  able  to 
recognize  some  member  of  our  own  family 
— some  ancestor  whom  we  might  be  able 
to  recognize,  or  perhaps  even  mamma  or 
Aunt  Claire,  still  quite  little  children  as 
they  were,  being  brought  back  from  their 
evening  walk  with  the  May  flowers  they 
had  gathered  in  their  hands.  The  passers- 
by  also  rushed  in  and  out  of  the  houses, 


162     THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

quickly  closing  the  doors,  as  though  they 
had  grown  unaccustomed  to  wander  in  the 
midst  of  streets  and  were  a  little  dis- 
tressed at  finding  themselves  restored  to 
real  life.  The  women  wore  leg-of-mutton 
sleeves,  combs  a  la  girafe  /  bonnets  so  old- 
fashioned  that  in  spite  of  our  emotion  and 
of  our  vaofue  terror  we  could  not  but  smile. 
A  mournful  breeze,  at  the  corner  of  the 
streets  especially,  agitated,  in  the  confused 
twilight,  the  petticoats,  the  little  shawls, 
the  odd-lookins:  scarves  of  the  women  who 
passed  by,  giving  them  still  more  the  ap- 
pearance of  phantoms.  But  in  spite  of 
this  breeze,  and  in  spite  of  this  somber 
twilight,  one  could  see  that  it  was  spring ; 
the  lime-trees  were  in  flowei',  and  on  the 
old  walls  the  Jessamine  smelt  sweet. 
Quite  close  to  u^  there  passed  a  couple, 
still  very  young,  two  lovers,  tenderly  lean- 
ing on  each  other's  arm,  and  with  a  some- 
thing— I  know  not  what — in  their  air 
which,  being  familiar  to  me,  made  me  look 
at  them  with  particular  attention.     "  Ah ! " 


IN  THE  DEAD  PAST.  153 

said  my  niece,  in  a  tone  half-tender,  lialf- 
irouical,  though  without  malice,  "  it  is  the 
old  Dougas."  The  person  at  my  side,  who 
was  indistinct  at  the  start,  had  definitely 
resolved  herself  into  my  niece.  I  saw  her 
now  quite  clearly  at  my  side,  walking 
very   rapidly — almost   running. 

It  w^as,  indeed,  the  old  Dougas  ;  that  was 
the  resemblance  which  I  myself  sought  to 
recall.  And  we  were  both  deeply  stirred, 
not  precisely  because  of  them,  but  because 
of  the  simple  fact  that  we  had  succeeded 
in  recognizing  someone  in  the  multitude  of 
furtive  spectei*s.  That  at  once  gave  the 
charm  of  tlie  most  striking  truth  to  this 
dive  into  the  dead  past,  and  that  threw 
over  this  sight  of  buried  events  a  melan- 
choly still  more  indescribable. 

Those  old  Dougas — the  people  of  whom 
we  were  thinking  least  of  all — under  what 
an  unexpected  aspect  did  they  reappear  to 
us.  Poor  old  grotesque  beings  whom  we 
had  known  formerly  in  our  quarter— who 
were  already  infirm  and  decrepit  while  we 


354     THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  BE  ATA 

were  still  children — old  people  of  the  kind 
that  produce  on  children  the  impression  of 
having  always  been  the  same.  And  these 
were  really  the  people  who  passed  along  so 
briskly,  looking  like  a  pair  of  turtle-doves, 
in  this  gentle  evening  breeze — she  posi- 
tively young,  with  her  head  bent,  her  coal- 
black  hair  coquettishly  arranged  under  a 
large  hat  of  the  fashion  of  the  time  !  They 
were  not  more  absurd  than  others,  not 
uglier,  transfigured  by  the  mere  magic  of 
youth,  and  with  the  air  of  enjoying  as  much 
as  anybody  could  the  fugitive  hours  of 
spring  and  of  love.  And  to  see  them 
young  and  in  love  again  thus — those  old 
Dougas — gave  me  a  still  sadder  sense  of 
the  fragility  of  these  two  things,  love  and 
youth,  the  only  things  which  are  worth 
living  for. 

Another  very  somber  impression  of  the 
past  came  to  me  during  a  recent  visit  to 
Corsica. 

At   Ajaccio,  where  I  had  just  arrived, 


IN  THE  BEAD  PAST.  156 

and  \yliicli  I  saw  for  the  first  time,  some 
friends  took  me  to  see  tlie  house  in  which 
Napoleon  the  First  was  born.  It  was  in 
the  spring — it  is  always  spring  when  these 
things  happen  to  me — a  spring  warmer 
than  ours,  heavy  under  a  clouded  sky,  with 
the  scent  of  orange  trees  and  some  other 
plants  that  might  almost  have  been  African. 
I  had  felt  but  little  interest  beforehand  in 
this  house,  no  more  than  I  do  about  any 
other  of  the  scenes  familiar  to  sis^htseers 
and  guidebooks  where  people  generally 
think  themselves  bound  to  go.  It  said  to 
me  nothing,  and  would  cause  me  no  emo- 
tion. 

The  spot,  however,  pleased  me  from  the 
very  first.  You  felt  that  in  the  district 
nothing  could  have  changed  since  the 
childhood  of  this  man,  who  had  so  up- 
turned the  world. 

Above  all,  the  house  was  intact;  and 
from  the  moment  I  entered,  helped  by  the 
evening  hours  and  the  silence,  the  past  be- 
gan to  come  forth  to  me  out  of  the  dark- 


156     THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

ness,  evoked  as  it  were  by  tte  smallest  de- 
tails ;  tlie  track  of  feet  on  the  steps  of  the 
stairs,  the  faded  whitewash  of  the  walls, 
the  old  iron  scraper  placed  before  the 
threshold  on  which  muddy  eighteenth-cen- 
tury boots  had  been  rubbed.  The  past  be- 
gan to  assume  its  spectral  life  in  my  atten- 
tive brain. 

First,  in  the  courtyard — that  sad  little 
courtyard,  bare  of  grass  and  surrounded  by 
high  houses  of  very  ancient  date — I  saw 
playing  the  strange  child  that  afterward 
became  the  emperor. 

The  rooms  into  which  I  entered  in  the 
twilight  were  but  dimly  lighted  through 
the  shutters,  Avhich  were  everywhere  closed 
as  though  to  increase  the  sense  of  mystery. 
The  furniture  had  an  air  of  elegance,  an 
odor  of  hon  ton,  in  this  large  dwelling ;  it 
was  clear  that  the  owniers  of  this  house 
were  people  of  substance  according  to  the 
ideas  of  the  time.  And,  then,  the  seal  of 
the  past  was  so  deeply  impressed  every- 
where, the  smell  of  dust,  the  extreme  de- 


IN  TEE  DEAD  PAST.  157 

cay  of  tliis  furniture  of  the  days  of  Louis 
XV.,  or  of  Louis  X VI.,  eaten  by  moths 
and  worms,  gave  an  impression  of  the  abso- 
lute abandonment,  the  long  immobility  of 
a  tomb,  as  if  nobody  had  entered  there 
since  that  time,  nearly  a  hundred  years  ago, 
when  its  historic  owners  had  passed  from 
its  doors.  In  the  dining  room,  looking  on 
the  small  and  almost  deserted  street,  there 
was  their  table,  still  set,  with  curious 
chairs  of  an  ancient  pattern  ranged  around ; 
and  little  by  little  I  succeeded  in  bringing 
before  my  imagination  one  of  their  family 
suppers — on  a  spring  evening  fearfully 
like  this,  with  the  same  sounds  of  birds 
from  under  the  roofs  and  the  same  scents 
in  the  air.  They  came  to  life  again  before 
my  eyes,  in  the  semi-darkness  favorable  to 
the  dead,  faces  and  dresses  and  all ;  pale 
Mme.  Letitia  seated  in  the  midst  of  her 
somewhat  strange-looking  children,  their 
enigmatic  future  already  preoccupying  her 
grave  spirit.  It  is  so  near  to  us  this  epoch 
of  theirs  when  one  thinks  of  it ;  we  are  al- 


158     TEE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

ways  80  near  eacli  other  in  time's  profound 
depths  of  endless  successions. 

Then  my  thoughts  wandered  from  this 
mother  of  an  emperor  to  my  own ;  and  sud- 
denly— I  cannot  explain  the  origin  of  this 
feeling — I  felt  an  extreme  sadness  in  the 
darkness,  something  like  the  dizziness  one 
feels  on  looking  into  an  abyss,  when  I  said 
to  myself  that  this  supper  of  the  Bona- 
partes,  which  I  had  seen  so  clearly  and  so 
suddenly,  had  all  passed  more  than  half  a 
century  before  there  was  any  thought  in 
the  world  of  my  own  mother — of  that 
mother  who  has  been  always  the  most  pre- 
cious and  the  most  stable  thing  in  life  to 
me — to  whose  side  I  cling  with  some  of  the 
feeling  of  the  child's  tender  confidence 
whenever  dark  terror  seizes  me  of  destruc- 
tion and  the  void. 

I  don't  know  how  to  explain  it ;  but  I 
should  prefer  to  believe  that  her  beginnings 
of  life  started  from  a  date  more  remote; 
that  her  gentle  faith,  which  still  gives  me  a 
sense  of  security,  had  its  origin  in  a  past 


IN  THE  DEAD  PAST.  159 

a  little  more  remote ;  at  tlie  same  time, 
feeling  the  contradictory  sentiment  that 
her  soul  should  have  beyond  death  an 
existence  without  end ;  and  to  think  of  a 
time  very  like  ours,  and  yet  in  which  she 
had  not  begun  to  exist,  upsets  me  com- 
pletely. I  believe  that  it  gives  me  a  new 
sensation  more  poignant  that  ever  of  the 
nothino-ness  of  us  both  in  the  vast  whirl 
of  beings,  in  the  infinitude  of  time. 

Attention  is  quickly  tired  as  soon  as  it 
has  been  devoted  too  intently  to  any  sub- 
ject. During  the  rest  of  my  visit  to  the 
house  of  the  emperor  I  thought  of  other 
things — nothing  of  any  importance,  and 
nothina:  that  interested  me. 

I  saw  nevertheless  his  modest  room — his 
room  as  a  young  man — in  which  I  was  told 
he  slept  for  the  last  time  on  his  return  from 
Egypt.  It  was  quite  striking  in  appear- 
ance, with  all  its  small  details,  which  were 
still  preserved.  In  oiu'  old  house  in  the  Isle 
of  Oleron  I  remember  a  similar  one  which 


160     TUE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

was  formerly  occupied  by  a  Huguenot  great- 
grandaunt,  wlao  was  almost  liis  contem- 
poraiy. 

But  for  me  tlie  soul  and  the  terror  of  the 
place  are  in  the  room  of  Mme.  Letitia,  a 
pale  portrait  of  whom,  placed  in  a  dark 
spot  I  did  not  at  fu'st  see,  but  which 
arrested  me  just  as  I  was  leaving  with  a 
sudden  sense  of  fright.  In  an  oval  that 
had  lost  its  gilt,  under  a  moldy  glass,  it 
stands,  a  discolored  pastel,  the  head  pale 
against  a  black  background.  She  is  like 
him :  she  has  the  same  imperious  eyes,  and 
the  same  smooth  hair  with  the  same 
smoothly  lying  locks.  Her  expi'ession,  sur- 
prisingly intense,  has  in  it  something  sad, 
wild,  suppliant.  She  appears  a  prey  to  the 
anguish  of  no  longer  being.  The  face,  how 
I  know  not,  has  not  remained  in  the  center 
of  the  frame ;  it  is  as  a  face  of  a  dead  person 
who,  frightened  at  finding  herself  there  in 
the  midst  of  night,  has  placed  her  face  fur- 
tively in  an  obscure  corner  in  this  oval  for 


IN  THE  DElAD  PAST.  161 

the  purpose  of  seeing  through  the  mist  of 
the  dim  glass  what  the  living  are  doing. 
And  what  has  become  of  all  the  gloiy  of 
her  son  ?  Poor  woman  !  At  the  side  of 
his  portrait  on  the  worm-eaten  chest-of- 
di'awers  in  his  old  room,  there  is  under  a 
globe  a  "  Crib  of  Bethlehem,"  with  the 
figures  in  ivory,  which  looks  like  a  child's 
toy.  It  \vas  pi'obably  her  son  who  brought 
this  back  to  her  from  one  of  his  journeys. 
It  would  be  very  curious  to  know  how  they 
were  to  each  other — wliat  degree  of  tender- 
ness they  showed  to  each  other ;  he,  intoxi- 
cated with  glory;  she  always  anxious, 
severe,  sad,  foreboding. 

Poor  woman !  she  has  passed  into  dark 
night ;  and  even  the  fading  splendor  of  the 
emperor  scarcely  suffices  to  keep  his  name 
in  some  men's  memories.  And  in  spite  of 
his  efforts  to  immortalize  himself  like  the 
old  legendary  heroes,  his  mother  in  less  than 
a  century  is  forgotten.  To  save  her  from 
oblivion  there  remains  but  two  or  three 
portraits,  scattered  and  neglected  like  this 


162     THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

one,  whicli  is  already  half-fa'Sed  out.  And 
our  mothers — the  mothers  of  us  who  are 
unknown — who  will  remember  them? 
Who  will  preserve  their  loved  images  when 
we  are  no  longer  here  ? 

Face  to  face  with  this  pastel,  in  the 
opposite  angle  of  this  same  room,  another 
small  sad  thing  attracts  my  attention  in 
spite  of  the  growing  darkness :  it  is  a  simple 
frame  in  wood,  containing  a  yellow  photo- 
graph attached  to  the  wall.  It  represents, 
still  a  little  child  in  short  trousers,  that 
young  Prince  Imperial  who  was  killed  in 
Africa  about  a  dozen  yeai's  ago.  A  curious 
fancy,  yet  a  touching  one,  of  the  ex-Empress 
Eugenie  to  place  here  this  souvenir  of  her 
son,  the  last  of  the  Napoleons,  in  the  same 
room  where  was  born  that  other  one  who 
shook  the  world ! 

I  think  of  how  striking  and  strange  it 
will  be  to  our  children  a  century  or  two 
hence  to  pass  in  review  the  photographs  of 
their  ancestors  or  of  dead  children.     How- 


IN  THE  DEAD  PAST.  163 

ever  expressive  be  those  portraits,  whether 
printed  or  painted,  Avhich  our  ancestors 
have  bequeathed  to  us,  they  cannot  produce 
on  us  anything  like  the  same  impi'ession. 
But  photographs,  which  are  direct  reflec- 
tions from  oureelves,  which  fix  even  fugitive 
attitudes,  gestures,  momentary  expression, 
how  curious  and  howahnost  terrifying  they 
will  be  to  those  genei'ations  which  will 
come  after  us  when  we  also  have  descended 
into  the  dead  past. 


SOME  FISHERMEN'S  WIDOWS. 


SOME  FISHERMEN'S  WIDOWS. 

During  the  recent  fishing  season  two  boats  belonging  to 
Paimpol,  the  Petite-Jennne  and  the  Cathenne,  were  lost 
with  all  their  crews  and  freight  in  the  sea  off  Iceland.  By 
this  one  disaster  thirty  widows  and  eighty  orphans  were 
added  to  the  list  on  the  Breton  Coast.  M.  Pierre  Loti  then 
made  an  appeal  to  the  charity  of  tlie  public.  A  subscrip- 
tion, which  was  immediately  openal.  brought  in  about 
thirty  thousand  francs,  which  were  distributed  among  the 
bereaved  families.  la  the  pages  that  follow  the  account  is 
given  of  the  work  of  distribution. — Note  by  the  Publiaher. 

The  scene  is  at  Paimpol,  one  September 
morning,  in  tlie  usual  Breton  weatlier — 
somber  and  rainy.  The  first  emotion  I 
experienced  was  poignant  enough  when,  at 
the  hour  agreed  upon,  I  entered  the  house 
of  the  Naval  Commissary,  ^vhere  were 
assembled  the  families  of  the  sailors  who 
had  been  lost.  The  corridor  and  the 
vestibule  were  filled  wdth  mdows,  aged 
mothers,  women  in  mourning;  black 
gowns,  white  caps,  from  under  which 
167 


168      TUHJ  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

tears  were  flowing.  All  silent  and 
huddled  together  tliei'e  because  of  tlie 
rain  outside,  tliey  awaited  my  appear- 
ance. 

In  tlie  office  of  the  Commissary  were 
met,  on  his  invitation,  the  Mayors  of  Plou- 
bazlanec,  of  Plouezec,  and  of  Kerity  (the 
three  Communes  where  the  suffering  was 
greatest).  They  came  to  assist  as  wit- 
nesses at  the  distribution,  and  to  supply 
information  with  regard  to  the  character  of 
tlie  widows  to  whom  simis  comj)aratively 
large  were  about  to  be  given.  I  had 
feared  that  among  so  many  there  would  be 
some  who  were  not  quite  reliable,  who 
might  be  extravagant  in  this  country 
which  reeks  of  alcohol.  But  I  was  wrong. 
Ah !  These  poor  women,  they  did  not 
require  the  good  character  given  to  them 
in  every  case  by  the  Mayors ;  their  honest 
faces  told  their  own  tale.  And  they  were 
all  so  clean,  so  neat,  so  nicely  dressed  with 
their  humble  black  clothes  and  their  caps 
freshly  ironed. 


^SO ME  FISHERMEN'S  WIDOWS.  169 

We  began  witli  the  widows  of  the  crew 
of  the  Petite- Jeaniie. 

They  answered  one  after  the  other  to 
their  names,  and  came  to  take  the  money, 
some  with  sobs,  others  with  quiet  tears, 
and  some  finally  ^vith  a  little  sad  and 
embarrassed  salutation  to  us.  AVhen  they 
retired,  thanking  everybody,  the  Mayor 
had  the  kindness  to  say  to  them,  pointing 
to  me,  "It  is  to  him — it  is  to  Nostre  Loti 
(in  French,  Monsieur  Loti)  that  you 
should  give  your  thanks."  Then  some  put 
out  their  hands  to  touch  mine;  ali  gave 
me  an  ever-to-be-remembered  look  of  grati- 
tude. 

There  were  some  among  them  who  had 
never  seen  a  note  for  a  thousand  francs,  and 
who  turned  this  little  blue  symbol  over  and 
over  again  in  their  hands  with  an  air  al- 
most of  fright.  The  value  of  this  piece  of 
paper  was  explained  to  them  in  the  Breton 
tongue.  "You  must  be  economical,"  ex- 
plained the  Mayor  to  them,  "  and  keep  that 
for  the  children."     They  replied,   "  I  will 


1^0     THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

invest  it,  good  sir;"  or,  "  I  will  Iniy  a  piece 
of  a  field — I  will  buy  some  slieep— I  M'ill 
buy  a  cow  ? "  and  then  tliey  went  away, 
weeping. 

When  the  sorrowful  work  of  distribution 
to  the  widows  of  the  Petite- Jeanne  was 
finished,  that  of  the  Catherine  began,  with 
an  incident  which  was  very  touching. 

This  Catlierine,  you  must  know,  had  a 
mysterious  fate,  like  that  formei'ly  told  of 
the  Leopoldine ;  nobody  had  ever  met  it  in 
Iceland ;  it  must  have  foundered  before 
ever  it  got  there ;  and,  then,  nobody  had 
seen  or  ever  heard  anything  of  its  Avn'eck. 
But  it  was  now  six  months  since  anything 
had  been  heard  of  it,  an<i  that  was  suffi- 
cient to  allow  us  to  assume  that  it  was  cer- 
tainly lost.  Nevertheless,  some  widows,  it 
appeared,  still  hoped  against  all  probability. 
I  had  no  doubts  my§elf ;  but  on  the  previ- 
ous evening,  acting  on  the  opinion  of  the 
owner  of  the  ship,  the  Naval  Commissary 
and  myself  had  decided  that,  in  the  absence 


SOME  FISHERMEN 'S  WIBO  WS.  1 V 1 

of  proofs,  we  should  wait  some  weeks  yet 
before  distributiug  tlie  money  to  these  fam- 
ilies of  the  Catherine.  The  widows  had 
been  informed  that  they  would  be  called 
this  morning  to  be  told  only  the  sums  that 
were  designed  for  them,  and  that  they 
would  not  receive  them  until  October,  and 
then  only  in  case  no  good  news  came  by 
that  time  with  reo:ard  to  the  fate  of  the 
vessel.  But  M.  de  Nouel,  Mayor  of  Plou- 
bazlanec,*  had  come  to  tell  us  during  our 
meeting,  that  some  of  the  fishermen  belong- 
ing to  his  Commune,  who  had  returned 
from  Iceland,  had  seen  a  piece  of  what  was 
undoubtedly  the  wreck  of  the  Catherine; 
our  hesitations  naturally  fell  to  the  ground ; 
there  was  nothing  further  to  be  expected, 
and  we  could  pay  immediately. 

The  first  widows  who  w^ere  called — two 
young  women,  who  presented  themselves 
together — thought  that  they  were  only 
going  to  be  informed  of  the  amount  of  their 
money.  When  they  saw  that  they  were  to 
be  paid  immediately,  they,  like  theii'  sisters 


172     THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

of  the  Petite- Jeanne,  looked  at  eacli  other 
witli  eyes  that  questioned;  at  the  same 
moment,  a  frightful  look  of  anguish  crossed 
their  faces,  and  then  there  came  an  unex- 
pected outburst  of  sobs  which  was  caught 
up  even  as  far  as  the  vestibule,  where  the 
others  were.  The  unfortunate  creatures 
had  not  yet  given  way  to  complete  despair. 
They  had  already  begun  to  wear  mourning, 
but  they  persisted  in  hoping  against  hope  5 
and  now,  when  the  money  was  put  in  their 
hands,  it  seemed  to  them  that  everything 
was  made  more  hopeless,  more  irrevocable ; 
that  it  was  the  lives  of  their  husbands 
which  were  being  paid  to  them.  I  had 
without  thinking,  by  my  tactlessness,  in- 
flicted on  them  a  cruel  blow. 

When  all  those  of  the  Catherine  had  taken 
their  departure,  about  ten  other  women,  in 
their  poor  black  gowns,  who  had  been  sum- 
moned, still  waited  at  the  door.  Here  I  am 
compelled  to  confess  that  I  went  beyond  my 
powers.     But  how  difficult  it  was  not  to  do 


SO^TE  FISHERMEN'S  WIDOWS.  1V3 

SO ;  and  wlio  will  find  fault  with  me  for 
it? 

During  tlie  preceding  evening  some 
women  in  mourning  had  come  to  the  hotel 
where  I  was  staying  to  call  on  me,  and 
had  said  to  me  humbly,  without  recrimina- 
tion and  without  jealousy,  "  I  also  have  lost 
my  husband  in  Iceland  this  year ;  he  fell 
into  the  sea" ;  or,  "  he  was  carried  away 
from  his  ship  by  a  wave  ;  and  I  also  have 
little  children."  I  should  have  said  to  them, 
"  I  am  exceedingly  sorry,  but  you  do  not 
belong  to  the  Petite-Jeanne  or  the  Cathe- 
rine. Now  I  have  assistance  only  for  them ; 
I  cannot  recognize  you," 

It  ended  by  my  feeling  this  inequality 
to  be  unjust  and  unnatural.  I  ask  pardon 
of  my  subscribers,  but  after  refusing  at 
first,  I  took  it  upon  myself  to  make  these 
poor  people  share  in  the  distribution.  I 
decided  to  give  a  part  of  the  subscription — 
a  lesser  part  it  must  be  said — to  the  other 
women  of  the  district  of  Paimpol  whose 
husbands  had  been  lost  in  the  course  of  this 


1V4     THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DFATII. 

year,  and  I  begged  the  Commissary  of  the 
Naval  Recruiting  Department — who  ap- 
proved of  my  decision— to  begin  again  the 
complicated  calculation  of  the  amounts  to 
be  distributed  to  each  person. 

Alas !  in  this  country  of  the  Icelanders 
there  remain  many  widows  still  to  whom  I 
can  give  no  assistance;  widows  from  last 
year,  widows  from  two  years  ago,  from 
three  years  ago — all  in  great  poverty  and 
burdened  with  very  young  children.  To 
them  I  have  been  obliged  to  turn  a  deaf 
ear ;  one  must  stop  somewhere — draw  the 
line  at  some  point. 

It  was  painful  to  me  not  to  be  able  to  do 
something  for  these  afHictions  of  older  date. 
I  have  sulfered  still  more  from  the  thought 
of  my  inability  to  console  those  who  are 
going  to  suffer  in  the  coming  fishing  seasons, 
for  I  can  never  venture  to  address  another 
appeal  to  my  unknown  friends. 

After  such  reflections  I  understood  better 
the  half-protest,  so  courteous  in  its  terms, 
which  had   been  sent  to  me  by  the  ship- 


SOME  FISHERMEN '8  WIDOWS.  1 V5 

o\\Tiei*s  of  Paimpol  when  I  started  the  sub- 
scription. They  were  almost  friglitened  to 
see  the  money  so  soon  reacli  the  widows  of 
the  Petite- Jeanne  when  other  women  of  the 
same  district,  living  next  door  to  them, 
having  had  the  same  losses  through  ship- 
wreck, would  have  to  remain  in  their  deep 
distress.  They  had  urgently  requested  me 
to  ask  the  permission  of  the  subscribers  to 
place  the  funds  at  the  disposal  of  the 
"Courcy  Society,"  and  I  had  been  on  the 
point  of  doing  so. 

But,  then,  if  I  had  done  so,  I  should  have 
immediately  stopped  the  flow  of  charity 
which  had  been  coming  in  with  such  spon- 
taneity. We  are  like  this :  there  must  be 
some  special  case  of  misfortune  brought 
under  our  very  eyes  in  an  especial  manner 
to  open  our  hearts.  Charitable  associations 
organized  for  a  general  purpose  speak  to 
us  but  little — hardly  touch  us  at  all.  And 
so  I  had  to  let  things  go,  as  we  say  in  the 
Navy. 

At  this  moment  and  for  the  future  I  am 


176      THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEA  Til. 

entirely  devoted  to  the  Courcy  Society,  the 
very  existence  of  which  I  did  not  know  of 
two  months  ago.  If  I  can  contiibute  to 
making  it  a  little  better  known  I  shall  be 
very  glad. 

There  is  a  charitable  man — M.  de 
Courcy* — who  has  devoted  himself  heart 
and  soul  to  the  widows  and  little  orphans 
of  the  sea.  In  seven  years  he  has  gathered 
and  placed  about  eight  hundred  thousand 
francs  as  a  charitable  fund  for  the  families 
of  all  shipwrecked  French  sailors.  There 
is  not  a  fishing  village  where  his  name  is 
not  known  and  blessed. 

The  help  which  tlie  Society  sends  has 
this  advantage  over  those  started  by  in- 
dividual initiative,  that  it  is  always  given  in 
the  proportion  in  which  it  is  needed,  so  as 
to  excite  no  feeling  of  jealousy  among  the 
families  whom  misfortune  has  overtaken. 

But  this  assistance  is  unfortunately  very 

*  The  office  of  the  Society  for  the  Assistance  of  the 
Families  of  tlie  Shipwrecked,  founded  by  M.  de  Courcy,  is 
at  87,  Rue  de  Richelieu,  Paris, 


SOME  FISHERMEN 'S  WID  OWS.  1 V  7 

much  smaller  tliaii  that  Avliich  I  have  been 
sufficiently  fortunate  to  bring  to  Paimpol 
to-day.  It  is  insufficient  everywhere  and 
often;  for  the  activity  of  the  Society  ex- 
tends without  distinction  along  all  our 
coast,  from  the  Mediterj-auean  to  the  Chan- 
nel, and,  alas  !  the  sailors  who  lose  their 
lives  every  year  are  numerous.  M.  de 
Courcy  then  ought  to  have  many  legacies, 
many  donations,  and  I  would  that  I  could 
speak  of  his  work  such  touching  words  as 
would  bring  him  some. 

Thanks  to  the  information  collected  with 
so  much  care  by  the  Naval  Commissary,  we 
have  been  able  to  calculate  the  shares  of 
the  different  claimants  with  tolerable  equity, 
taking  into  account  the  sums  already  given 
by  M.  de  Courcy,  and  taking  also  into 
especial  consideration  the  number  of  chil- 
dren in  each  family  (including  the  babies 
that  were  expected,  who  were  numer- 
ous). 

I  have  also  thought  it  our  duty  to  give 


178     THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

assistance   to  aged   parents  who  had  lost 
their  breadwinner   in   their  son. 

Those  who  knew  how  to  write  a  little 
signed  opposite  their  names  on  the  lists 
which  we  had  prepared.  For  those  who 
could  not  write  (they  were  the  more 
numerous)  the  mayors  who  were  present 
signed  as  witnesses. 

At  Pors-Even  and  at  Ploubazlanec, 
where  I  went  in  the  evening  at  the  close 
of  the  distribution  to  see  some  fishermen 
who  were  old  friends  of  mine,  I  received 
many  shakes  of  the  hand,  many  thanks, 
many  blessings.  I  wish  I  had  the  power 
to  transmit  to  the  subscribers  some  of  all 
this — it  was  so  frank,  simple,  and  so  good. 

On  the  Tuesday  following  I  left  this  dis- 
trict quietly  in  a  coupe  on  the  Saint-Brieuc 
diligence,  thinking  that  it  was  all  over. 

About  two  o'clock  we  were  to  pass 
Plouezec,  the  most  afflicted  commune,  that 
of  the  sailors  of  the  Petite- Jeanne, 


SOME  FISHERMEN'S  WIDOWS.  1V9 

At  first  I  looked  from  afar  at  this  village, 
with  its  houses  of  gi'anite,  its  chapel,  and 
its  gray  spire,  thinking  of  all  there  was  of 
sorrow  and  misery  mthin  its  narrow  limits. 

As  I  got  closer  I  was  sui-prised  to  see 
many  people  stationed  along  the  road — 
crowds,  as  if  for  a  fair ;  but,  unlike  them, 
silent  and  motionless ;  the  majority  women 
and  children. 

"  I  believe  it  is  for  you.  They  are  wait- 
ing for  you,"  said  an  Iceland  fiiend  to  me, 
who  was  traveling  at  my  side  in  this  car- 
riage. 

And  it  turned  out  to  be  for  me  ;  I  un- 
derstood that  soon.  They  had  learned  the 
hour  at  which  I  was  going  to  pass,  and 
they   wished   to   see   me. 

When  the  courier  stopped  before  the 
post-office  the  mayor  advanced,  raising  with 
his  two  hands  a  little  child  of  six  to  seven 
years,  who  had  some  business  to  transact 
with  me — a  very  beautiful  little  child,  with 
large  dark  eyes  and  hair  that  was  silky 
and  of  the  color  of   yellow  straw.      She 


180     THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

had  to  offer  me  a  beautiful  bouquet,  and  to 
address  to  me  tliis  compliment  (over  whicli 
slie  got  mixed  a  little,  which  made  her 
Av  eep) :  ''  I  thank  you  because  you  have 
kept  the  little  children  of  Plouezec  from 
being  hungry." 

They  wej*e  di-awn  up  in  a  line  on  the  two 
sides  of  the  road,  these  "  little  children  of 
Plouezec" ;  and  in  the  first  roAV  beliind 
them  I  recognized  the  widows  of  yesterday, 
whose  eyes  were  filled  with  teare  as  they 
looked  at  me.  Behind  them  were  almost 
the  whole  population  of  the  village,  and 
some  strangers — bathers,  doubtless,  or 
tourists. 

It  was  not  a  noisy  crowd ;  there  was  no 
ovation  with  outbursts  of  applause — it  was 
much  better  and  more  than  that ;  it  was 
just  a  few  groups  of  people,  poor  for  the 
most  part,  who,  touched,  grateful,  motion- 
less, looked  at  me  without  saying  anything. 

The  courier  set  out  once  more,  and  I 
bowed  along  the  whole  street  to  the  people, 
striving  to  maintain  the  ordinaiy  expression 


SOME  FISHERMEN'S  WIDOWS.  181 

of  my  face,  for  a  man  looks  very   absurd 
when  lie  weeps. 

I  liave  already  in  the  name  of  those 
widows  and  those  orphans  thanked  the 
subscribers  who  have  responded  to  my  ap- 
peal. -  I  have  to  thank  them  also  for  my- 
self, because  of  this  moment  of  sweet  emo- 
tion which  I  owe  to  them. 


AUNT  CLAIEE  LEAVES  US. 


AUNT   CLATEE   LEAVES   US. 

Ah  t  InsensCy  que  crois  que  tu  rCes  pas  moi. 

— V.  Hugo:  "  Les  Contemplations." 

Sunday,  November  30,  1890. — Yester- 
day evening  tlie  sad  boundary  was  passed ; 
the  precise  moment  in  whicti  one  under- 
stands suddenly  tliat  death  has  come,  is 
gone. 

Those  who  have  passed  through  the  sor. 
row  know  well  that  decisive  conversation 
with  the  doctor,  and  how  one  fixes  on  him 
one's  eyes,  almost  threatening  in  their  ex- 
citedness,  while  he  speaks.  His  answers, 
at  first  obstinately  vague,  and  then  more 
and  more  heart-breaking  as  you  press  him, 
are  understood  gradually,  enveloping  you 
with  successive  chills  which  penetrate 
deeper  with  every  moment,  until  the 
moment  comes  when  you  bow  your  head, 

185 


186     THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OP  DHATH. 

having  finally  grasped  it  all.  One  is 
almost  moved  to  cry  out  to  Mm  for  mercy, 
as  if  it  depended  on  Mm,  and  at  the  same 
time  one  almost  hates  Mm  because  lie  can 
do  notMng. 

So,  then,  she  is  going  to  die — Aunt 
Claire. 

And  when  one  does  know  it,  a  certain 
length  of  time  is  necessary  to  survey  all 
the  aspects  of  what  is  going  to  happen — 
even  to  understand  why  it  is  that  there 
is  something  so  frightfully  final  in 
death. 

The  first  night,  then,  arrives  of  that  cer- 
tainty with  the  momentary  oblivion  that 
comes  with  sleep,  and  then  you  must  go 
through  the  anguish  of  waking  to  find  that 
black  thought  seated  more  closely  than 
ever  by  your  side. 

And  so  it  is  all  over ;  Aunt  Claire  is  go- 
ing to  die. 

Monday,  December  1. — This  is  a  day  of 
severe   frost.      A   sad   winter  sun   sMnes 


AUNT  CLAIRE  LEAVES   US.  187 

white  in  a  pale-blue  sky — more  sinister 
tlian  if  gray. 

This  day  is  passed  in  expecting  the 
death  of  Aunt  Claire.  She  lies  on  a  low 
bed  in  the  middle  of  her  room  where  she 
had  been  laid  just  for  a  moment,  and  where 
she  asked  to  be  left  without  moving  her 
ao;ain. 

It  is  her  old  room  of  former  days,  where 
I  used  to  love  to  remain  whole  days  long 
when  I  was  a  child;  many  of  my  first 
strange  little  dreams  of  the  great  and  un- 
known universe  are  associated  with  some  of 
the  things  around — with  the  window  frames, 
the  ancient  Avater  colors  on  the  walls; 
above  all  they  are  entangled  with  the 
cloudy  patterns  on  the  marble  of  the 
chimney-piece  which  I  used  to  closely 
study  in  the  wanter  evenings,  discovering 
there  all  kinds  of  shapes  of  animals  or 
things  when  the  twilight  hour  brought  me 
close  to  the  fire.  Nothing  is  changed  in 
this  chimney-piece  where  Aunt  Claire 
formerly  used  to  place  for  me  L'Ours  aiiw 


188     THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

pralines  ;  and  I  see  still  in  the  same  places 
the  table  on  which  she  assisted  me  to 
place  my  magic  tricks,  the  large  chest  of 
drawers  which  I  used  to  burden  with  my 
play  of  the  Peau  d^Ane,  with  my  fantastic 
decorations  and  with  my  little  actors  in 
porcelain.  All  my  childhood,  whether 
anxious  or  happy — all  the  opening  im- 
pressions of  my  mind,  whether  disquieted 
or  dazzled  by  mirages — I  find  again  to-day 
with  a  melancholy  as  from  beyond  the 
tomb  in  this  room  where  formerly  I  was 
so  much  petted,  consoled,  spoiled  by  her 
who  is  going  to  die  there.  Ah  !  that  is  the 
end  of  everything.  Alas  !  for  the  nothing- 
ness which  beckons  to  us  all,  and  where 
we  shall  all  be  to-morrow. 

There  is  nothing  more  to  be  done ;  and 
we  remain  near  her  bed. 

During  those  hours  of  dumb  expectancy, 
in  which  the  spirit  sometimes  falls  asleep 
and  forgets — in  which  one  sees  nothing 
but   the   poor    pale   face,   already   almost 


AUNT  CLAIRE  LEAVES  US.  189 

without  thought,  of  her  who  is  yet  Aunt 
Claire — the  good  old  aunt  so  deeply  loved 
— my  eyes  catch  sight  of  the  cushions 
which  hold  her  up.  This  one,  with  pat- 
terns a  little  faded,  was  embroidered  by 
her  formerly  as  a  surprise,  I  remember,  for 
New  Year's  Day — at  the  period  when  the 
approach  of  the  New  Year  presents  trans- 
ported me  with  such  childish  joy  twenty- 
five  or  thirty  years  ago.  Ah  !  what  a  time 
is  that  of  youth  !  Oh  !  that  one  could  re- 
turn there  for  but  one  hour !  Oh  !  that 
one  might  retrace  one's  steps  across  the 
times  that  have  been,  or  if  only  one  could 
tarry  a  little  by  the  way  and  not  rush  on 
so  fast  to  death  ! 

There  is  nothing  to  be  done ;  we  remain 
near  her,  and  from  time  to  time  the  new- 
comers of  the  family — the  very  little  ones 
who  will  grow  old  so  soon — arrive  also,  led 
by  the  hand  or  in  their  nurses'  arms — a  little 
frightened  without  knowing  how  much 
cause  there  is  for  terror,  and  with  their  eyes 
opened  anxiously.     They  scarcely  remem- 


190     THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

berherwlio  is  passing  away.  Without,  it 
is  freezing  bitterly  under  this  pale  hyper- 
borean sky.  And  my  beloved  old  mother, 
sitting  motionless  in  the  same  chair  opposite 
her  dying  sister,  continues  to  watch  that  poor 
face  which  is  breaking  up  and  passing  to  an- 
nihilation, will  not  turn  away  her  eyes  from 
that  companion  of  all  her  life,  who  is  the  first 
to  return  to  earth.  And  I  hear  her  whisper 
quite  low,  with  an  accent  of  sweet  and  sub- 
lime pity,  "  How  long  !  How  long ! " 
This  thing,  which  she  does  not  name  and 
which  we  all  know,  is  the  last  agony.  She 
feels  that  it  is  very  long  for  her  sister  and 
that  no  suifering  is  spared  her.  But 
she  speaks  of  it  as  of  a  passage  toward  an 
elsewhere,  radiant  and  very  assured;  she 
speaks  of  it  with  that  tranquil  faith  which 
I  venerate — which  is  the  one  thing  in  the 
world  that  gives  me  at  certain  hours  an 
unreasoning  hope  that  is  still  somewhat 
sweet. 

This  terrible  cold  weather,  so  unusual  in 


AUNT  GLAIUE  LEAVES   US.  191 

our  region,  continues,  adding  to  tlie  sadness 
of  the  expectation  of  deatli  a  general  sinister 
impression  as  of  a  cosmic  trouble — as  of  the 
freezing  up  of  the  whole  earth. 

Toward  three  in  the  afternoon,  in  the 
frozen  house,  I  was  wandering  about  the 
rooms  without  object,  merely  for  the  pur- 
pose of  changing  from  one  place  to  another, 
without  knowing  what  to  do  and  my  mind 
absent  for  a  little  w-hile.  I  had  almost /w- 
gotten,  as  happens  when  the  most  soiTowful 
expectation  is  prolonged  indefinitely ;  and 
I  reached  quite  accidentally  the  linen-room 
at  the  top  of  the  house,  whence  one  can  see 
ihe  country  for  a  long  distance  through  the 
window  panes  dimmed  by  the  foggy  frost 
— ^the  country  level  and  somber  under  the 
red  sun  of  a  winter  eveninor. 

On  one  of  the  shutters  outside  the  win- 
dow my  eyes  caught  sight  of  two  blades  of 
rose-bay  in  a  poor  little  broken  bottle, 
which  hung  by  a  string  from  a  nail,  and 
suddenly  I  remembered  it  all  with  a  pang 


1 92     THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DBA TH. 

of  grief.  It  was  just  about  two  months  ago, 
during  the  beautiful  autumn,  which  was  so 
luminous  and  warm  that  Aunt  Claire,  pass- 
ing accidentally  at  the  same  time  as  I 
through  this  linen-room,  said  to  me,  pointing 
this  out  to  me,  "  Those  are  some  cuttings 
of  rose-bay  that  I  am  making."  I  do  not 
know  why,  but  at  the  first  moment  I  was 
rather  saddened.  This  idea  of  making  cut- 
tins^s  when  it  would  have  been  so  much 
more  simple  to  buy  rose-bays  all  grown, 
appeared  to  me  like  a  bit  of  senile  folly. 
But  then  my  thoughts  went  back  with  a 
deep  sense  of  tenderness  to  those  past 
days — ^to  that  time  at  which  we  were  so 
poor,  and  ab  which  the  energy,  order,  and 
thrift  of  mamma  and  Aunt  Claire  were  able 
to  giv^  a  good  appearance  to  our  house  ;  to 
that  time  when,  as  ever  afterward,  it  was 
Aunt  Claire  who  had  the  supreme  direction 
of  our  trees  and  our  flowers  ;  for  it  was  she 
herself  who  made  the  cuttings  and  who 
attended  to  the  buds,  to  the  sowing  in 
the  spring,  and  always  found  the  means, 


AUNT  CLAIRE  LEAVES  US.  193 

at  an  infinitesimal  expense,  of  making 
our  courtyard  flowery  and  beautiful. 
To  have  been  poor  is  really  an  exquisite 
experience.  I  blessed  that  unexpected 
poverty,  which  came  to  us  one  fine  day  just 
at  the  close  of  my  too  happy  infancy,  and 
remained  with  us  for  more  than  ten  years. 
It  drew  closer  together  the  bonds  between 
us;  it  made  me  adore  the  more  the  two 
dear  guardians  of  my  fireside.  It  has  giv^en 
me  priceless  memories  ;  it  has  thrown  much 
charm  over  my  life.  I  cannot  tell  all 
that  it  has  brought  me  and  all  that  I  owe 
to  it,  all  of  which  is  certainly  wanting  to 
those  who  have  never  known  poverty ;  to 
them  one  of  the  most  beautiful  sides  of  this 
world  remains  unknown. 

These  plants,  which  we  buy  nowadays  at 
the  nurseries,  are  to  me  impersonal — ^just 
the  same  as  any  others — I  know  them  not, 
when  they  die  I  care  not ;  but  those  which 
were  sown  or  grafted  by  Aunt  Claire,  ah  ! 
how  I  wished  that  this  unaccustomed  cold 
should  not  kill  them.     Terror  suddenly 


194     THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

seized  hold  of  me  at  the  thought ;  it 
would  be  one  sorrow  the  more.  I  will  at 
once  tell  the  servants  to  take  care  of  all 
those  which  are  in  the  pots,  to  keep  them  at 
the  right  temperature  ;  to  watch  over  them 
with  greater  care  than  ever. 

Then  I  look  closer  throus-h  the  windows 

o 

at  these  two  blades  of  rose-bay  shaken  by 
the  deadly  north  wind.  They  are  already 
frozen,  and  the  frost  has  broken  the  bottle 
in  which  they  are  suspended.  Nobody 
will  ever  plant  it  again  or  make  it  revive, 
this  poor  little  slip  left  by  Aunt  Claire. 
It  makes  me  cruelly  miserable  to  look  at  it, 
and  sobs  suddenly  come  to  me — the  first 
since  I  have  learned  that  she  is  going  to 
die. 

Then  I  open*  the  window  ; .  I  take  up 
piously  the  frozen  slip,  the  remains  of  the 
bottle,  the  string  to  which  it  is  attached, 
and  I  inclose '  all  in  a  box,  writing  on  the 
cover  what  it  had  all  been,  with  the 
mournful  date.  Who  can  tell  into  whose 
hands  will  fall  this  absurd  little  relic  when 


AUNT  CLAIRE  LEAVES   US.  195 

I  also  shall  have  returned  to  earth? 
Everywhere  there  is  this  eternal  irony. 
To  love  with  all  one's  heart  faces  and 
things  which  each  day,  each  hour,  helps  to 
destroy,  to  weaken,  to  bring  to  decay ; 
and,  after  struggling  with  anguish  to 
retain  some  little  portion  of  all  that  is 
passing  away,  to  pass  away  in  one's  turn  ! 

In  the  evenins:  Aunt  Claire  breathes 
and  speaks  still,  recognizes  us,  answei"s  our 
questions,  but  in  a  dull  monotonous  voice 
without  inflections ;  it  is  not  her  old  voice ; 
she  has  already  half  descended  into  the 
abyss. 

I  have  to  mount  guard  at  the  sailors' 
barracks,  and  have  accordingly  to  go  back 
there  for  the  night.  Leo,  who  has  come 
to  take  me  there  through  the  dark  and  icy 
streets,  says  to  me  en  route,  during  our 
silent  walk,  only  this  little  phrase,  so  sim- 
ple in  itself,  so  commonplace  from  its  very 
simplicity,  and,  nevertheless,  expressing 
pages  of  that  kind  of  regret  for  my  distant 
past  which  I  experience  at  this  moment — 


196     THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

words,  besides,  wMcli  sound  the  funeral 
knell  of  all  the  auroral  epoch  in  my  life, 
"  She  will  no  longer  attend  to  your  exer- 
cises or  your  impositions;  poor  Aunt 
Claire,  she  will  no  longer  take  part  in  your 
performance  of  the  Peau  d'Ane." 

I  pass  my  night  of  guard  without  sleep 
in  these  barracks.  Outside  there  is  still 
the  heavy  frost  and  the  persistent  cold 
under  a  clear  and  dry  sky.  At  break  of 
day  I  send  my  orderly  for  news.  A  word 
written  in  pencil  tells  me  that  nothing  is 
changed ;  Aunt  Claire  still  lives. 

At  the  barracks,  also,  where  I  have  to 
remain  all  day,  there  is  something  else 
which  adds  its  tiny  sadness  to  my  great 
grief.  In  consequence  of  an  order  from 
the  Ministry  reducing  our  Division,  they 
take  down  some  rooms  where  the  Marines 
had  lodged  since  Louis  XIV.,  among  them 
the  old  fencing-hall,  which  I  loved,  because 
I  had  taken  there  my  first  lessons  in  arms, 
^nd  because  I  had  there  for  years  taught 


AUNT  CLAIRE  LEAVES   US.  197 

myseK  all  the  sailor's  sports.  Pell-mell 
are  thrown  on  the  frozen  ground  the 
bundles  of  foils,  the  sticks  and  the  boxing- 
""  gloves,  the  old  escutcheons  and  the  old 
trophies.  And  I  feel  almost  that  a  portion 
of  my  youth  is  being  scattered  with  them 
over  the  2;round. 

About  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon, 
after  taking  a  turn  at  work  in  the  open  air 
in  the  courtyards,  I  re-enter  this  poor  room 
of  the  officer  on  guard  which  I  have  to 
occupy  until  the  following  morning,  and  I 
see  on  the  ugly  and  sad  yellow  curtains  of 
the  bed  a  poor  butterfly,  which  flaps  its 
wings  as  if  about  to  die — a  large  buttei^fly 
of  the  flowers  of  summer,  a  "  Vanesse," 
whose  existence  in  December,  after  all  this 
excessive  cold,  unusual  in  our  countiy,  has 
in  it  something  abnormal  and  inexplicable. 
I  approach  and  look  at  it.  It  is  pierced 
right  to  its  head  by  a  large  pin,  which  has 
been  run  into  its  poor  little  torn  body.  It 
is  my  orderly  who  has  done  this,  with  the 
same  want  of  pity  which  is  shown  by  chil- 


198     TEE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

dren.  A  flutter  of  painful  agony  agitates 
its  poor  wings,  which  are  still  fresh.  In 
certain  peculiar  states  of  the  mind,  in 
moments  of  anxiety  and  despair,  very 
insignificant  little  things  are  exaggerated  ; 
reveal  their  unfathomable  depths,  cause 
you  pain,  and  bring  tears.  Thus  it  is  that 
the  sight  of  the  agony  of  this  last  butterfly 
of  the  summer  on  a  wintry  and  frosty  eve- 
ning, under  the  dying  hours  of  a  wan  and 
rose-colored  setting  sun,  appears  to  me  a 
thing  infinitely  melancholy,  and  is  asso- 
ciated in  my  mind  in  a  mysterious  manner 
with  the  other  agony  which  is  close  at 
hand.  And  tears,  the  tears  that  are  the 
more  bitter  because  they  are  shed  in  soli- 
tude, dim  my  eyes. 

Ah !  that  beautiful  past  summer,  of  which 
this  butterfly  is  the  last  survivor.  With 
what  tightening  of  the  heartstrings  I  saw 
it  disappear  !  I  felt  it  finish  little  by  little 
in  the  midst  of  plants  that  grew  yellow,  in 
the  midst  of  our  vines  and  roses  shedding 
their  leaves.     I  had  so  clear  a  presentiment 


AUNT  CLAIRE  LEAVES   US.  199 

that  it  was  the  last  of  those  in  which  it 
would  be  given  to  me  to  see  once  more  pass 
together  the  two  dear  black  dresses,  alike 
in  shaj)e,  amid  the  flowers  of  our  courtyard 
and  in  the  green  avenue. 

There  was  nothing  to  be  done  for  this 
buttei-fly.  It  was  doubly  killed  by  the 
cold  and  by  this  hole  which  went  through 
its  body.  I  cannot  do  better  than  hasten 
its  end.  I  catch  hold  of  it,  causing  it  as 
little  pain  as  possible,  and  I  throw  it  into 
the  fire,  where  it  was  instantaneously 
burned,  its  soul  passing  away  in  impercepti- 
ble smoke. 

Another  night  on  guard  at  the  barracks, 
through  which  I  believe  I  hear  every  mo- 
ment steps  on  the  stairs — somebody  coming 
from  the  house  to  tell  me  that  death  has 
done  its  work. 

Wednesday,  December  3. — This  morn- 
ing I  finish  my  week  of  duty.     There  is 


200     THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEA  Til. 

still  this  weather  of  severe  frost  with  a 
wail  sun. 

In  this  room  of  Aunt  Claii-e,  where  for 
three  days  it  seems  to  me  one  can  feel 
physically  the  approach  of  death,  things 
retain  their  same  aspect  of  expectancy,  and 
mamma  is  in  the  same  chair  beside  her, 
lookino-  at  her  as  she  takes  her  flio-ht  on 

o  o 

this  little  iron  bed  from  which  she  no  longer 
wishes  to  be  moved.  Very  low,  in  full 
view  of  everyone,  and  almost  in  the  midst 
of  the  room.  Aunt  Claire  is  lying,  complains, 
is  agitated,  and  suffers.  She  looks  like 
herself  less  and  less,  growing  disfigured. 
The  locks  of  her  white  hair,  Avhich  used  to 
be  arranged  so  carefully,  are  now  all  in  dis- 
order. Her  face  changes  and  becomes 
effaced,  under  her  eyes,  even  before  the  end. 
Then  she  scarcely  recognizes,  and  is  no 
longer  able  to  speak  even  with  that  dull 
voice  which  had  not  appeared  to  belong  to 
her.  All  around,  nevertheless,  her  room 
has  preserved  its  accustomed  aspect,  with 
the  same  little  objects  in  the  same  places 


AUNT  CLAIRE  LEAVES  US.  201 

as  in  the  days  of  my  childliood,  and  when 
I  try  to  imagine  that  this  poor  remnant, 
ah'eady  scarcely  recognizable,  condemned 
beyond  hope,  is  the  Aunt  Claire  of  former 
days,  I  have  a  rush  of  sorrow  which  is  like 
the  fall  of  wintry  night  on  my  life,  and 
brings  besides  a  disquieting  feeling  that  I 
have  never  been  able  to  let  her  know  how 
much  I  loved  her. 

The  doctor  declares  this  evening  that  she 
cannot  pass  through  the  night,  and  that 
there  is  nothing  more  to  be  attempted,  to 
be  hoped.  Nevertheless  a  little  suft'ering 
•can  be  prevented  by  the  use  of  morphia. 
On  this  little  chance  bed  she  is  in  the  grip  of 
annihilation ;  she  is  about  to  finish  that  life, 
without  joy  even  in  the  hours  of  her  j'outh, 
which  was  always  humble  and  self-effaced — 
sacrificed  to  us  all. 

In  the  old  house,  in  the  rooms,  on  the 
staircase,  there  prevails  during  this  night  a 
cold  which  penetrates  to  our  bones — which 
grasps  the  mind  and  holds  it  clutched  in 


202     THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEA  TIL 

the  single  thought  of  death.  One  might 
imagine  that  the  sun  was  departing  from 
us  for  ever,  just  like  life ;  and  those  plants 
which  Aunt  Claire  cared  for  so  many  years 
in  our  courtyard  are  also  doubtless  about 
to  die. 

About  ten  o'clock,  mamma,  after  having 
kissed  the  poor  invalid,  is  persuaded  to 
leave  her,  and  to  go  and  take  some  rest  in 
a  distant  room  where  she  might  find  more 
silence.  She  allows  herself  to  be  led  away 
by  her  faithful  Melanie — one  of  a  race  of 
old  and  faithful  servants  who  have  become 
almost  members  of  the  family.  Before  she 
goes  away,  however,  she  has  prepared  with* 
that  tranquil  courage,  that  love  of  order 
which  ruled  her  whole  life,  those  white 
things  which  are  necessaiy  for  the  last 
toilet.  I,  who  never  saw  anybody  die  ex- 
cept in  the  distance,  without  preparations, 
in  ambulances,  or  on  ships,  am  astonished 
and  chilled  by  these  thousand  little  details 
which  are  altogether  unfamiliar  to  me. 

A  consultation  is  held  in  a  low  voice  as 


AUNT  CLAIRB  LEAVES   US.  203 

to  this  last  night's  watch.  It  is  agreed  that 
for  this  night  the  servants  shall  be  allowed 
to  sleep,  and  that  the  nieces  shall  keep  the 
vigil  together.  I  go  to  bed  close  by  in  the 
Arab  room,  and  I  am  to  be  roused  up  when 
the  moment  of  the  last  agony  comes.  They 
are  not  to  knock  at  my  door  for  fear  that 
mamma  below  should  hear  and  understand 
in  the  silence  of  the  night.  No,  they  are  to 
knock  at  a  certain  point  in  the  wall  which 
is  near  my  head,  and  just  at  that  point 
where  Aunt  Claire  formerly  tapped  with 
her  cane  in  the  early  morning  at  the  time, 
marked  with  constant  accuracy  by  a  great 
clock,  when  I  had  some  little  work  to  do 
in  the  early  morning,  or  some  journey  to 
make.  I  used  to  trust  much  more^  to  her 
than  to  my  sleepy  servant,  and  she  ac- 
cepted cheerfully  this  task ;  just  as  for- 
merly she  had  that  of  dressing  the  nymphs 
and  the  fairies  in  the  Peau  (TAne,  or  of  recit- 
ing to  me  the  Iliad,  or  any  of  the  other  tasks 
which  my  fertile  fancy  conveyed  to  her. 


204     THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEA  TH. 

Thursday,  December  4. — On  this  same 
night,  toward  two  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
after  some  moments  of  that  peculiar  sleep 
which  one  has  when  some  sorrow  lies  in 
wait,  the  expectancy  of  some  misfortune  or 
of  death,  I  wake  up  shivering  with  a  kind 
of  frozen  terror.  They  have  knocked  be- 
hind this  wall  which,  on  this  side,  resem- 
bles that  of  some  distant  white  mosque  and 
makes  the  spiiit  wander,  but  which  on  the 
other  side  looks  down  upon  the  alcove  of 
Aunt  Claire.  I  understood  almost  before 
I  had  heard.  I  understood  with  the  same 
terroi'  as  if  death  itself  with  its  bony  finger 
had  struck  this  little  place  in  the  alcove. 

I  jump  up  in  haste,  my  teeth  chattering 
from  the  cold  of  this  icy  night,  and  run  to 
where  I  am  called. 

Yes ;  it  is  the  end,  the  somber  stmggle 
of  the  final  hour.  It  lasts  but  a  few 
seconds.  Still  but  half  awake,  I  see  it  all 
as  if  in  a  painful  nightmare.  Then  comes 
the   soft   immobility,   and    supreme    tran- 


A  UNT  CLAIRE  LEA  VES   US.  205 

quillity.  Oil !  the  horror  of  that  moment ; 
the  terror  inspired  by  that  poor  head,  so 
venerated  and  so  loved,  which  falls  back  on 
its  pillow  forever ! 

Now  the  most  painful  things  have  to  be 
done ;  the  most  terrible  tasks  accomplished. 
Those  who  were  present  resolve  to  do 
these  things  themselves,  without  waiting 
for  the  presence  of  the  servants,  or  even 
their  assistance.  I  retire  until  this  is  com- 
pleted, in  the.  icy  anteroom,  penetrated  by 
a  deadly  sense  of  cold  which  is  not  alto- 
gether physical,  but  which  also  penetrates 

down   to  my  soul's  depths In  this 

anteroom  of  Aunt  Claire  there  were  those 
familiar  objects  which  I  have  known  all  my 
life,  but  \\hich  at  this  moment  I  can  no 
longer  look  at  ;   they  dim  my  eyes  with 

tears There   is   a   particular    little 

desk  of  hers,  some  small  books  and  a  Bible 
there  on  an  old  table.  Above  all  othei-s, 
in  a  corner  there  is  her  own  little  chair  as 
a  child,  brought  thither  from  the  "  Isle," 
preserved  for  seventy  or  seventy-five  years, 


206     THE  BOOK  Off  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

and  in  which  when  I  was  quite  a  child  I 
used  to  sit  down  near  her,  trying  to  imagine 
that  remote  epoch,  almost  legendary  and 
miraculous  in  my  young  eyes,  in  which,  in 
this  Isle  of  Oleron,  Aunt  Claire  herself 
had  been  a  little  girl. 

When  the  last  toilet  is  finished  I  am 
called  back.  Then  we  lift  the  poor  body, 
now  calm  and  in  white  garments,  and 
raise  it  from  the  small,  terrible  bed  of  suf- 
fering, which  in  spite  of  everything  we 
could  do  had  assumed  the  look  of  a  pallet, 
and  placed  her  on  a  large  bed,  white  and 
stainless. 

Then  we  begin  through  the  black  and 
frozen  house  a  curious  rushing  backward 
and  forward,  not  waking  the  servants,  and 
noiseless  so  that  mamma  may  hear  nothing. 
We  take  away  bit  by  bit  the  bed  of  death, 
all  the  somber  things  which  have  no  longer 
any  use,  carting  these  things  down  our- 
selves to  the  farthermost  point  of  the  house, 
and  passing  twenty  times  to  and  from  the 
courtyard,  in  which  a  wintry  rain,  colder 


AUNT  CLAIRE  LEAVES  VS.  20V 

than  real  snow,  begins  to  fall.  This  is 
about  thi'ee  o'clock  in  the  morning.  We 
look  as  though  we  were  doing  something 
clandestine  and  criminal.  We  perfonn 
tasks  of  which  we  had  no  idea  until  this 
night,  astonished  at  being  able  to  do  them 
without  more  pain  and  disgust,  and  sus- 
tained by  a  kind  of  delicacy  as  regards  the 
servants — by  a  kind  of  pious  sentiment 
which   extends   itself   even   to   trifles. 

Returned  at  last  to  the  side  of  the  bed 
where  we  had  laid  her,  we  took  away  with 
anxious  fear  that  mournful  bandage  which 
in  the  first  moments  is  placed  on  the  faces 
of  the  dead,  and  her  face  reappears — immo- 
bile, with  an  expression  already  more  peace- 
ful, no  longer  in  the  least  painful  to  look 
at. 

They  now  begin  to  dress  Aunt  Claire,  to 
fix  for  the  last  time  those  venerable  locks 
of  which  she  had  been  so  careful  during 
her  life.  And  as  soon  as  this  toilet  is 
finished,  tlie  white  hair  framing  the  pale 
forehead,  there  is  a  transformation  complete 


208     THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  BE  ATE. 

and  astonisliing.  Tlie  dear  face,  wMcIl  for 
so  many  days  I  have  seen  contracted  by 
physical  pain,  lias  become  completely  trans- 
figured. Aunt  Claire  lias  assumed  an  ex- 
pression of  supreme  peace,  a  tranquil  air  of 
distinction,  with  a  vague  smile  which  is 
very  beautiful,  an  air  of  soaring  above  all 
things  and  above  us.  It  is  soothing  and 
consoling  to  see  her  thus  in  this  garment 
white  as  snow — in  the  majesty  that  has 
suddenly  come  to  her — after  all  the  horrors 
of  that  little  bed  on  which  she  had  chosen 
to  lie,  waiting  for  death. 

Still  noiseless,  ascending  and  descending 
like  phantoms,  we  look  everywhere  for 
whatever  flowers  can  be  found  in  the  house 
during  this  frosty  weather ;  for  boumiets 
of  white  chrysanthemums,  which  were 
below  in  the  drawing-room ;  sweet-smelling 
orange  blossoms  which  have  been  brought 
from  Leo's  garden  in  Provence ;  then 
primroses,  and  we  cut  also  and  throw  over 
the  clothes  the  leaves  of  a  cyca  to  which 
we  attached  a  special  value,  because,  con- 


AUNT  CLAIRE  LEAVES   US.  209 

traiy  to  the  custom  of  annual  cycas,  it  had 
remained  living  for  four  summers  in  suc- 
cession in  the  shade  in  our  courtyard. 

The  face  continues  to  gro^v  refined,  to 
become  more  beautiful  in  its  pallor  of  white 
wax.  Never  was  there  a  dead  face  more 
beautiful  to  look  on,  and  we  thought  that 
all  the  little  children  in  the  family,  even 
my  son  Samuel,  might  enter  in  the  morning 
to  bid  her  adieu. 

Before  descending  to  my  mother,  and  in 
order  to  gain  time  and  to  delay  still  longer 
the  moment  for  saying  everything  to  her, 
we  make  up  our  minds  to  place  the  whole 
room  in  perfect  order.  Thus,  when  she 
conies  to  see  her  sister  once  again  the  aspect 
of  everything  around  will  have  nothing  in 
it  that  is  painful,  and  will  be  more  in  har- 
mony Avith  the  infinite  calmness  of  the  face 
which  rests  on  the  white  pillow.  This,  like 
everything  else,  we  do  entirely  ourselves, 
and  in  this  way  no  trace  will  remain  of  the 
struggle  of  the  night  to  those  who  were  not 
present   at   it.      Always   maintaining   the 


210     TUE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

same  silence,  stepping  on  tip-toe,  we  began 
the  work  with  a  craving  for  activity  which 
is  perhaps  a  little  feverish.  Here  we  are, 
like  servants,  taking  away  plates,  cups, 
medicines,  all  the  apparatus  of  illness  and 
death.  Then  we  open  the  windows  to  the 
frozen  air  of  night ;  we  burn  incense,  and  I 
even  remember  that  I  myself  swept  the 
carpets,  feeling  a  pleasure  at  this  moment 
in  doing  for  her  even  the  most  humble 
work.  Five  o'clock  in  the  morning  strikes 
when  all  is  finished.  When  everything  is 
in  perfect  order  and  the  flowers  are  arranged, 
a  little  silver  lamp  placed  in  a  certain  posi- 
tion throws  through  the  shutter  a  rosy  light 
on  the  dead  face,  which  completes  its 
radiant  transfiguration.  Aunt  Claire  has 
become  pretty,  prettier  than  we  have  ever 
seen  her  in  her  life ;  an  expression  of  su- 
preme triumph  and  peace  has  fixed  itself  for 
ever  upon  her  as  in  marble.  Her  face  at 
this  moment  is  rather  an  ideal  representation 
of  hers,  in  which,  while  all  the  features  have 
been  made  regular,  are  preserved  only  the 


AUNT  CLAIRE  LEAVES   US.  211 

charm,  gentleness,  and  sweetness  reflected 
from  her  soul,  and  these  green  branches 
placed  in  the  shape  of  a  cross  on  her  breast 
add  to  the  tranquil  and  unexpected  majesty 
of  her  look. 

Come  now,  there  is  no  longer  any  pre- 
text for  further  delay.  We  must  make  up 
our  minds  to  tell  my  mothei*  that  all  is 
passed  and  what  we  have  done.  To  reach 
her  room  I  had  to  make  a  long  detour  by 
the  rez-de-cliaussee  because  of  my  son,  who 
sleeps  the  light  sleep  of  a  little  child,  and  I 
find  our  silent  journey  interminable  as  I 
pass  with  a  lamp  in  my  hand  at  this  unac- 
customed hour  through  the  rooms  and 
stairs  one  after  the  other — black  and 
cold. 

It  is  hoiTibly  painful  to  be  the  bearer  of 
such  a  message.  At  the  first  knock,  though 
it  is  a  gentle  one,  and  before  Melanie  had 
had  time  to  get  up  and  open,  the  voice  of 
mamma,  who  defines  why  we  have  come, 
asks,  in  this  silence    of  the  night,   very 


212      THE  Boot  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

quickly  and  with  an  intonation  full  of  an- 
guish, "  It  is  all  over,  is  it  not  ? " 

The  winter's  day  breaks  at  last,  very 
pale,  much  less  cold  than  the  preceding 
days,  warmed  by  that  melted  snow  which 
Imd  fallen  through  the  night. 

In  tlie  forenoon  the  servants  go  hither 
and  thither  to  announce  the  end  to  our 
friends.  They  bring  bouquets  and  wreaths 
of  the  sad  flowers  of  winter,  with  which  the 
bed  is  gradually  covered.  They  were  still 
awaiting  the  roses  from  Provence  which 
had  been  ordered  by  telegram.  The  photog- 
rapher comes  to  take  that  quiet  face  framed 
in  white  locks,  which  to-morrow  will  have 
disappeared  for  evei'.  The  image  which 
will  be  made  will  remain  permanent  for 
some  years  still — for  just  a  few  moments  of 
insignificant  duration  in  the  continuous  in- 
finitude of  time.  Friends  go  up  and  go 
down ;  the  house  is  full  of  continual  rust- 
ling, unique,  soft,  with  muffled  feet,  and 
there  lies  Aunt  Claire  in  the  midst  of  her 


AUNT  CLAIRE  LEAVES  US.  213 

flowers,  with  tlie  same  smile  always  of 
triumphant  and  unalterable  peace.  My 
little  niece,  only  five,  when  she  is  brought 
to  the  bed-side,  thus  expresses  her  impres- 
sions to  her  still  smaller  sister,  who  has  not 
yet  been  brought  up :  "  They  have  just 
taken  me  to  see  Aunt  Claire,  who  looks 
like  an  ano-el  as  she  is  ascending:  to  heaven." 
I  also  remember  the  scene  with  Leo. 
For  nearly  four  years  he  was  her  neighbor 
at  table.  They  had  their  little  secrets — 
even  their  comic  little  quarrels^  especially 
in  reference  to  a  certain  pair  of  thin  short 
scissors  for  embroidery  which  are  called 
"monstres";  he,,  inventing  a  thousand  ex- 
cuses, each  more  stupid  than  the  other,  for 
wanting  these  little  "monstres,"  would 
come  to  ask  the  loan  of  them  from  Aunt 
Claire,  and  she  would  refuse  them  always 
in  indignation.  Only  one  solitary  time  she 
had  confided  them  to  him — the  evening  on 
which  he  had  been  promoted  to  his  cap- 
taincy. On  this  day  she  had  herself 
quietly  slipped  them  under  his  napkin  in 


214     THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

fulfillment  of  an  old  promise.  "  The  day 
on  whicli  you  get  your  captaincy  I  will 
lend  them  to  you,  if  you  are  only  good  up 
to  then."  And  this  morning,  somebody 
having  mentioned  before  him  the  words, 
"  little  monstres,"  he  bui'sts  into  sobs. 

I  go  to  the  cemetery  under  the  mid-day 
sun  to  make  the  arrano-ements  with  reorard 
to  the  vault  and  the  ceremony  on  the 
following  day.  The  weather  is  pleasant 
after  these  terrible  frosts,  and  there  is  a 
deceptive  sky  which  mocks  one  with  the 
light  of  summer.  I.  believe  that  somber 
skies  are  less  melancholy  in  December 
than  those  half-lights  which  grow  warm 
toward  the  middle  of  the  day,  and  after- 
ward grow  cold  veiy  early  from  the  damp 
ness  and  the  fogs.  In  this  cemetery,  bright 
and  almost  smiling  under  the  sun,  where 
thousands  of  artificial  wreaths  throw  pris- 
matic colors  on  the  tombs,  I  allow  myself 
to  be  distracted  for  a  few  moments,  my 
mind   going   a-wandering,  when  suddenly 


AUNT  CLAIRE  LEAVES  US.  215 

there  comes  back  upon  me  the  recollection 
of  death,  and  I  remember  that  I  have  gone 
there  to  prepare  a  place  of  annihilation  for 
my  Aunt  Claire. 

The  night  is  quickly  returned,  and  we 
prepare  for  the  last  vigil.  I  look  for  a 
long  time  before  I  dej)ai*t  at  the  serene  face 
of  Aunt  Claire,  trying  to  fix  in  my  memory 
this  last  image  of  her,  so  silent  and  so  pretty. 
All  the  arrangements,  these  flowera  on 
the  bed,  everything  is  just  as  I  would  have 
wished  it,  and  just  as  I  had  seen  it  with  a 
sad  spirit  of  anticipation. 

Memoiies  of  childhood  return  to  me  this 
evening  with  a  curious  distinctness.  They 
return  to  me  doubtless  to  give  their  farewell, 
for  it  is  certain  that  Aunt  Claire  takes  away 
a  great  part  of  them  into  the  earth.  When 
I  was  eight  or  ten  years  of  age  I  had  a 
bird  which  I  loved  very  much.  I  knew 
that  its  little  existence  was  veiy  uncertain, 
and  I  had  taken  the  singular  precaution  of 
preparing  a  long  time  beforehand  all  that 


216     THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

was  necessary  to  bury  it — a  little  leaden 
box  lined  with  rose-colored  wadding,  and  a 
cambric  handkercbief  belonging  to  Aunt 
Claire  as  a  pall,  I  loved  this  little  bird 
with  a  strange  affection,  and  with  the 
vehemence  of  many  of  my  feelings  then. 
For  a  long  time  in  advance,  I  represented 
to  myself  that  a  day  would  come  when  I 
would  have  to  put  the  bird  in  its  little 
box,  and  when  I  would  see  the  silent  cage 
occupied  by  the  little  coffin  covered  with 
its  white  pall.  One  morning  when  they 
came  to  take  me  to  college.  Aunt  Claire, 
who  had  watched  me  from  a  window,  took 
me  apart  to  announce  to  me  gently  that 
the  bird  had  been  found  dead,  from  what 
cause  was  unknown.  I  wept  for  it  and 
buried  it,  as  I  had  for  a  long  time  arranged. 
Then,  till  the  day  following  I  left  in  its 
cage  the  miniature  coffin  covered  with 
the  fine  handkerchief,  and  I  could  not 
grow  tired  of  looking  at  the  sad  sight, 
which,  however,  was  the  realization  of 
a  thing  that  had  been    long  feared  and 


AU^T  CLAIRE  LEAVES  US.  217 

imagined    beforehand    exactly    as    it    oc- 
curred. 

It  was  sometliing  like  this  on  tliis  par- 
ticular eveniuo:.  Durinsj  all  the  recent 
wintei"s,  seeing  Aunt  Claire  grow  weaker 
and  older,  I  had  had  a  vision  of  her  bed  of 
death,  of  her  last  toilet  and  her  white 
locks  thus  arranged,  and  with  many  flow- 
ers thrown  over  her.  This  evening  I  look 
at  the  realization  of  a  thing  which  I  had 
feared  and  foreseen  absolutely  as  it  was  to 
be,  with  the  certainty  that  it  had  reached 
its  inexorable  fulfillment. 

Friday,  December  5. — The  heavy  frost 
has  returned  under  a  sky  low,  dai'k, 
funereal.  Never  since  I  came  into  the 
world  has  thei'e  been  such  a  winter  in  our 
country.  Once  more  there  comes  these 
vague  impressions  of  the  end  of  every- 
thing, of  universal  destruction  before  the 
invading  ice  ;  and  more  and  more  the  mind 
in  such  times  is  brous^ht  back  as^ain  and 
again  and  concentrated  on  the  dominating 


218     THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

thought   of    the    moment — which   for  us 
all   is   the   thouo-lit   of   death. 

o 

I  dreaded  to  thiuk  what  the  face  of  Aunt 
Claire  might  look  like  in  the  daylight  of 
this  day.  One  night  more  could  change  it 
very  much,  and  we  had  resolved  to  cover 
the  face  if  it  had  ceased  to  be  pleasant  to 
look  at. 

After  some  hours  of  sleep  I  come  anxi- 
ously to  look  at  it;  but  no,  there  is  no 
eifacement  in  the  pale  features ;  rather  the 
appearance  has  become  younger,  more 
beautiful,  more  refined,  and  the  expression 
of  peace  and  of  triumph,  the  mysterious 
sweet  smile,  remains  always  exactly  the 
same,  as  though  decisive  and  eternal.  We 
should  have  wished  to  preserve  her  and 
look  at  her  for  one  day  more,  if  everything 
had  not  been  arranged  for  to-day. 

There  are  a  thousand  preparations  to  be 
made  which  keep  one  from  thinking.  The 
baskets  of  roses  and  lilies  from  Provence 
have  just  arrived  from  the  railway  station, 


AVNT  CLAIRE  LEAVES   US.  219 

and  there  is  a  sense  almost  of  enchantment 
in  opening  them.  The  bed  from  which 
Aunt  Claire  smiles  so  sweetly  is  soon 
covered  with   all  these   new  flowers. 

Now  they  bring  in  that  ugly,  common- 
place and  sinister  thing — the  coffin — which 
I  had  never  before  seen  enter  the  house, 
having  always  been  absent  on  the  sea 
whenever  death  visited  us ;  and  the  hour 
has  come  to  do  the  most  cruel  of  all  our 
tasks,  to  place  Aunt  Claire  in  this  coffin, 
and  to  close  the  cover  upon  her  forever. 

Before  this  is  don,e  mamma  goes  away, 
for  we  had  begged  her  to  leave  the  room  in 
order  that  she  may  not  see  this  last  sight. 

Ah  !  the  sorro^v  of  very  old  people,  men 
or  women,  who  have  no  tears  any  longer  to 
shed  !  This  is  the  hardest  of  all  things  for 
me  to  look  at,  except,  perhaps,  the  tears  of 
little  children  who  are  deserted.  And  at 
this  moment  I  have  to  look  on  the  sorrow 
of  my  own  mother,  and  the  sorrow  that  be- 
longs to  her  alone.  I  believe  that  nothing 
has  ever  giieved  me  like  her  farewell  kiss 


220     THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

to  her  sister,  and  the  expression  of  her  eyes 
when  she  turned  back  on  the  threshold  to 
look  once  more,  and  for  the  last  time,  on 
this  companion  of  all  her  life.  Never  has 
my  revolt  been  more  angiy  and  more  dead- 
ly against  all  the  odiousness  of  death. 

We  placed  her  in  the  coffin  ourselves,  not 
allowing  her  to  be  touched  by  any  strange 
hand,  even  by  those  faithful  servants  who 
were  almost  ourselves.  It  was  all  done 
very  quickly,  almost   mechanically. 

There  were  many  people  there,  porters, 
workmen  who  had  come  to  solder  the 
heavy  lead,  and  their  presence  neutralizes 
everything.  It  is  all  over,  the  face  of  Aunt 
Claire  is  vanished  forever,  vanished  into  the 
great  night  of  things  that  are  gone. 

The  coffin  goes  away;  it  is  brought 
down  into  the  courtyard  ;  it  has  departed 
forever  from  this  dear  room,  in  which 
during  all  my  childhood  I  came  to  receive 
those  pettings  from  her  who  never  tired  of 
giving  them,  and  into  which  it  seemed  as 
though  her  presence  had  brought  something 


AUNT  CLAIRE  LEAVES   US.  221 

of  the  chann  of  tlie  old  isle,  soinetliing  of 
that  former  life  of  our  ancestors  la-has. 

In  the  courtyard,  on  benches  covered 
with  grass,  they  place  her  under  the  shel- 
ter of  an  awning.  On  the  ground  leaves 
are  streAved,  and  around  were  green  arbutus 
trees.  I  have  everything  taken  away  that 
the  severe  month  of  December  has  de- 
stroyed in  our  fruit  trees  ;  have  the  frozen 
branches  cut,  and  all  the  dead  leaves  taken 
off.  On  this  last  occasion  of  her  being  in 
the  courtyard,  which  she  had  cared  for  all 
her  life,  in  which  each  plant,  and  even  each 
imperceptible  bit  of  moss  ought  to  have 
knoAvn  her,  I  am  anxious  that  everything 
should  make  its  toilet  for  her,  ir^  spite  of 
the  winter. 

Of  the  ceremony  of  the  procession,  on 
which  there  falls  a  shower  of  melted  snow, 
I  scarcely  remember  anything.  In  public 
one  becomes  almost  unconscious,  as  at  the 
burial  of  somebody  one  does  not  know. 
One  remembers  only,  from  amid  so  many 
external  manifestations  of  sympathy,  a  look, 


2^2     fSE  BOOK  01*  PiTf  aMD  OF  DEATH. 

a  sLake  of  tlie  hands,  wLicli  have  been 
really  meant. 

Ah !  but  the  returning !  To  see  the 
house  once  more  under  this  black  Decem- 
ber sky,  in  this  icy  rain,  in  this  funereal 
twilight ;  the  house  in  disorder,  trodden  by 
the  feet  of  so  many  people,  with  the  green 
branches  which  were  strewn  around,  the 
odor  of  all  the  accessories  to  death,  which 
hangs  vaguely  on  the  stairs  over  which  the 
coffin  has  passed.  Then  comes  the  evening 
meal,  the  first  meal  at  which  we  all  meet, 
now  tranquil,  without  any  call  to  get  up 
or  go  into  the  chamber  of  the  invalid; 
the  first  meal  which  begins  again  the  old 
life  of  yesterday — with  one  place  forever 
empty  in  the  midst  of  us.  And  then  the 
first  night  which  follows  this  day. 

Lying  in  the  Arab  chamber,  I  am  con- 
stantly beset,  athwart  my  tired,  half-sleep, 
by  an  impression,  infinitely  sad,  of  the  un- 
accustomed stillness  which  is  on  the  other 
side  of  the  wall,  and  which  will  last  for- 
ever— the  stillness   in  the  room  of   Aunt 


AUNT  CLAIRE  LEAVES   US.  223 

Claire.  Ah !  for  tliose  dear  voices  and 
tliose  dear  protecting  mnrmurs  whicli  I 
heard  there  for  so  many  years  thi'ongh  this 
wall  when  the  stillness  of  night  had  come 
upon  the  house — Aunt  Claire  opening  the 
large  wardrobe,  which  creaked  on  its  locks 
in  a  peculiar  manner  (the  wardrobe  in 
which  was  placed  for  ever  ^^  L'Ours  aux 
pralines ") ;  Aunt  Claire  calliDg  out  some 
words,  Avhich  I  could  Just  distinguish,  to 
mamma,  who  had  gone  to  bed,  a  little 
further  on  in  a  room  close  by,  "  Do  you 
sleep,  my  sister  ?  "  And  the  large  clock  on 
the  wall — stopped  to-day — which  chimed 
so  loud  ;  the  clock  which  made  so  mflch 
noise  when  being  wound  up,  and  which 
sometimes,  to  our  great  amusement,  would 
wind  itself  up  before  it  went  to  sleep,  at  the 
stroke  of  midnight — so  that  it  had  become 
a  traditional  joke  in  the  house  whenever 
there  was  any  noctunial  disturbance  to 
accuse  Aunt  Claire  and  her  clock  of  it. 

All  that  is  over,  forever  over ;  for  Aunt 
Claire   has   taken   her   departure   for  the 


224     THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DFATH. 

cemetery,  and  mamma,  doubtless,  will  pre- 
fer never  aorain  to  live  in  the  room  next 
hers ;  silence,  therefore,  is  to  reign  there 
forever.  For  many  years  it  was  my  joy 
and  my  comfort  to  heai*  them  both,  to  re- 
cognize their  dear  old  voices  through  this 
wall,  rendered  sonorous  by  the  night.  It 
is  all  over  ;  never  again  shall  I  hear  them. 

When  at  last,  under  the  influence  of  the 
extreme  fatigue  and  the  overwork  of  these 
last  few  days,  I  fell  asleep  on  this  night  of 
mourning,  I  had  a  succession  of  dreams 
which  I  will  attempt  to  describe  and  wliich 
we^e  all  impregnated  with  the  idea  of 
death. 

The  first  dream  took  place  at  home.  We 
were  all  gathered  together  in  the  Gothic 
hall,  and  in  the  evening.  It  must  have  been 
just  about  the  hour  the  sun  was  setting, 
for  large  red  rays  reached  us  from  the  west 
through  the  curtains  and  tlie  embrasures  of 
the  arches,  and  yet  there  was  a  light  that 
was  dimmer  and  more  somber  than  is  usual. 


AUNT  CLAIRE  LEAVES   US.  225 

even  when  the  twilight  is  coming  on.  In 
the  hall  there  was  all  the  desolation  of  iniin. 
The  walls  were  cracked,  the  chairs  were 
broken,  the  furniture  was  worm-eaten, 
everything  was  cnimbling  to  dust.  But 
we  were  caieless  of  this  disorder,  'twas  but 
the  precursor  of  some  other  kind  of  in- 
definable destruction  Avhich  had  become  in- 
evitable; we  remained  stationary  in  our 
places,  resignedly  awaiting  the  end  of  the 
world. 

And  now  we  began  to  see  through  the 
half-opened  wall  the  heaped-up  ruins  of  the 
houses  of  the  w^hole  neighborhood,  and  be- 
yond stretched  the  monotonous  horizon  of 
the  country  as  far  as  Martrou  and  Limoise : 
while  over  the  vast  plains  the  red  disk  of 
the  setting  sun  lay,  scattering  around  us  its 
long  evening  rays.  The  forms  and  faces  of 
the  beins^s  ^vho  waited  there  witb  me  re- 
mained  indistinct,  with  phantom-like  aspect ; 
on  one  side  was  my  mother,  whom  I  re- 
cognized. 'But  who  were  the  others? 
Perhaps  ancestors  whom  I  had  never  seen, 


226     THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

from  the  Isle  of  Oleron,  or  some  descen- 
dants or  heirs  who  had  not  yet  come  into 
existence — members  of  the  same  family, 
but  without  epoch  or  distinct  individuality. 
We  were  all  still  under  the  impression  of 
the  death  of  Aunt  Claire,  but  this  impres- 
sion lost  something  of  its  force  under  the 
feeling  that  we  were  face  to  face  with  the 
end  of  everything  and  of  ourselves;  the 
regret  of  what  we  had  lost  in  her  was  dif- 
fused in  the  more  general  melancholy  in- 
spired by  the  annihilation  of  everything 
else  in  the  world.  And  as  to  this  sun, 
which  set  with  a  tranquillity  that  seemed 
to  vaunt  of  its  limitless  duration,  we  looked 
upon  it  with  a  sort  of  hatred.  Then  one  of 
the  half-phantoms  stretched  forth  its  hand, 
and  its  index-finger  pointed  toward  the 
disk  of  the  sun  as  though  to  curse  it;  a 
voice  began  to  utter  words  which  seemed 
to  us  to  reveal  truths  that  could  not  be 
grasped,  while,  at  the  same  time,  they  were 
the  expression  of  oiu*  universal  complaint — 
of  our  universal  revolt,  hitherto  voiceless. 


AUNT  CLAIRE  LEAVES   us.  227 

against  that  aunihilation  wLidi  was  so  near 
and  so  inevitable. 

The  words  which  the  voice  uttered,  when 
recalled  after,  in  waking  hours,  appeared  to 
be  incoherent  and  devoid  of  sense ;  in  the 
hours  of  dreams  they  appeared  on  the  con- 
traiy  an  eloquent  and  profound  Apocalypse, 
revealiDo;  sublime  truths.  In  dreams  one  is 
perhaps  more  capable  of  understanding  the 
mysterious,  more  capable  of  penetrating 
into  the  unfathomed  depths  of  origins  and 
causes. 

Of  all  the  sentences  which  the  voice  had 
uttered  against  the  sun,  this  last  one  alone 
remains  with  definite  meaning  to  my 
awakened  spirit — a  phrase  not  common- 
place, and  ordinary  enough  in  all  con- 
science :  "  Thou  art  always  the  same — al- 
ways the  same.  The  same  that  didst  set 
in  the  same  place,  on  these  same  plains, 
years,  centuries,  ten  of  centuries  ago,  in  the 
period  before  the  great  deluge,  when  thy 
sole  duty  was  to  cast  light  on  an  earth  pop- 
ulated by  the  animals  of  that  period — the 


228     THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

mammotlis  and  the  plesiosaurus."  And 
this  word  plesiosaurus,  on  which  the  voice 
died  away,  had  vibrated  strangely,  had 
been  prolonged  in  the  silence  as  though  it 
were  an  invocation  and  an  appeal  to  the 
monstrosities  and  the  terrors  of  the  begin- 
nings of  existence.  The  dimly  lit  plain, 
with  the  loud  expiring  and  melancholy  echo 
of  this  word,  stretched  to  infinite  length  be- 
fore us,  with  this  same  pallid  sun  ever  in 
the  midst  of  its  immense  horizon.  The 
plain  put  on  again  its  antediluvian  aspect, 
the  primordial  desolation  and  nudity  of  the 
epochs  that  have  disappeared. 

And  thus  it  came-  to  pass  that  inexpli- 
cable things  began  to  take  place  around  us 
at  the  bottom  of  the  hall.  In  the  dark 
part,  the  door  of  the  "  museum  "  opened — 
in  which  formerly  my  childish  spirit  had 
been  initiated  into  the  infinite  diversity  of 
Nature's  forms — opened  on  the  high  gallery 
on  which  it  gave;  animals  began  to  walk 
forth  from  it;  the  old  animals  stuifed  with 
straw,  some  of  which,  brought  thither  by 


AUNT  CLAIRE  LEAVES   US.  229 

sailors  of  a  past  age,  had  been  dried  up 
into  dust  for  a  lono;  time. 

Slowly,  one  after  tlie  other,  the  beasts 
came  forth;  there  was,  however,  neither 
epoch,  nor  duration,  nor  life,  nor  death, 
and  in  this  grand  confusion  of  things  there 
seemed  no  cause  for  wonder. 

The  birds,  coming  forth  from  behind 
their  glass  cases,  went  one  by  one  and 
perched  on  the  embrasures  of  the  high 
chimney-place ;  and  I  especially  recognized 
among  them  the  oldest  ones,  the  first  that 
had  been  given  to  me  when  I  was  a  child. 
It  is  a  curious  things  that  at  moments  of 
fatigue  or  sorrow,  of  any  kind  of  over-ex- 
citement of  the  nervous  system,  it  is  always 
the  impressions  of  childhood  which  reap- 
pear and  dominate  everything. 

The  butterflies  also,  butterflies  dead  for 
so  many  summers,  had  broken  from  the 
pins  and  the  glass  cases,  and  flew  around 
us  in  the  darkness,  that  grew  deeper  with 
every  succeeding  moment.  There  was 
one  in  particular  among  these  butterflies 


230     THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

whose  approach  I  saw  with  a  feeling  o:^ 
indefinable  terror;  a  certain  yellow,  pale 
buttei'fly,  the  "  citron-aurore,"  which  is 
associated  to  me,  in  my  mind,  with  a  whole 
world  of  memories  of  sunshine  and  youth. 
It  began  its  little  life  again  like  the  rest; 
but  its  wings  shivered  with  that  same 
agony  which  I  had  seen  in  the  butterfly 
I  had  found,  four  days  previously,  pinned 
to  the  curtains  of  my  barrack-room  bed, 
and  I  retreated  from  it,  so  as  not  to  in- 
terfere with  its  flight,  surprised  that  the 
other  human  forms  did  not  do  likewise ; 
for  this  butterfly  had  become  in  my  eyes 
an  emanation,  as  it  were,  of  Aunt  Claire, 
something  of  herself — perhaps  her  wander- 
ing soul. 

•  •  •  •  • 

Next  day  another  dream  came  to  me, 
suffused  with  this  same  feeling  of  the  end 
of  all  things,  but  with  less  of  the  sense  of 
revolt  and  horror. 

I  dreamed  this  time  that  after  a  long  sea 
voyage  I  returned  to  th^  familiar  hearth^ 


AUNT  CLAIRE  lEAVES   US.  231 

having  aged  mucli  in  tlie  meantime,  and 
my  hair  having  grown  gray.  Athwart  this 
same  halfday  of  the  twilight  I  saw  once 
again  the  things  that  were  familiar  to  me. 
They  were  in  no  way  disarranged,  but  in 
orderly  array  as  in  the  houses  of  the  liv- 
ing ;  in  spite  of  this  apprehension  of 
death,  which  continued  to  hang  over 
everything. 

I  arrived  alone,  expected  by  nobody, 
after  an  absence  that  had  lasted  so  long. 
I  saw  ray  mother  slowly  ascending  the 
dark  stairs,  aged  and  feeble  to  an  extent  I 
had  never  seen  before  ;  we  recognized  each 
other  without  saying  anything,  united  in 
the  same  silent  apprehensions.  Taking 
her  by  the  hand  I  brought  her  into  my 
own  room — the  Arab  room — where  I  made 
her  sit  down,  and  threw  myself  on  the 
gi'ound  at  her  feet.  Then,  drawn  to  the 
door  by  some  indefinable  and  disquieting 
presentiment,  I  went  to  look  out  on  the 
staircase  ;  I  went  out  with  a  certain  tremu- 
lous hesitation  in  this  sinister  semi-dark- 


232      THE  BOOK  OF  piTY  AND  OF  DBA  Til. 

ness,  to  try  and  see  if  there  were  nobody 
ascending  the  stairs  after  us.  The  room 
of  Aunt  Claire,  wliieh  also  looked  out  on 
this  vestibule,  was  open,  and  lit  by  a  sort 
of  yellow  as  by  the  yellowish  rays  of  a 
setting  star.  I  went  in  there  to  look 
around.  And  then,  turning  around,  I  saw 
her  bejiind  me ;  she  had  reappeared 
silently  with  her  set  eyes  smiling,  but  so 
sad.  I  felt  no  terror;  I  touched  her  just 
to  assure  myself  that  she  was  as  real  as  I 
myself ;  then,  taking  her  by  the  hand,  and 
still  without  uttering  a  word,  I  led  her 
into  the  Arab  room  toward  mamma,  to 
whom  I  said  only  as  I  entered,  "Guess 
whom  I  am  bringing  back  to  you." 
When  they  were  both  seated,  and  I  once 
more  at  their  feet,  I  took  them  once  again 
by  the  hands,  just  to  hold  them  tight  and 
prevent  them  from  vanishing  before  me, 
having  but  little  confidence  in  their  reality 
or  their  duration.  And  we  remained  a 
long  time  thus,  without  motion  and  with- 
out words,  with  the  consciousness  not  only 


AUNT  CLAIRE  LEAVES   US.  233 

of  being  alone  in  this  deserted  house,  but 
of  being  also  the  only  survivors  in  all  this 
town  abandoned  to  specters,  as  though 
after  the  long  lapse  of  time  we  three  alone 
had  been  spared.  Moreover,  we  knew 
that  we  also  were  going  to  disappear,  to 
be  annihilated.  I  said  to  myself  with  a 
supreme  despair,  I  have  been  able  to  fix 
something  of  theii*  features  in  my  books, 
to  reveal  them  both  to  thousands  of  un- 
known brothers  as  distraught  as  I  by  the 
prospect  of  death  and  oblivion.  But  they 
also  have  passed  away,  everybody  who 
had  read  me,  every  one  o:^  my  own  genera- 
tion; and  now  it  is  all  over  with  that 
factitious  life  which  I  gave  them  both  in 
the  memories  of  men ;  it  is  all  over  with 
them,  it  is  all  over  with  me ;  even  the 
traces  of  our  existence  are  about  to  be 
effaced  and  lost  in  the  absoluteness  of 
annihilation,  complete  nothingness. 

March,     1891. — Three     months     have 
abeady  passed  since  Aunt  Claire  left  us. 


234     THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

Almost  on  the  morrow  of  her  death  I 
had  abruptly  rUvshed  off,  leaving  the  house 
still  in  the  sinister  disorder  and  the  country 
under  the  somber  cold  of  tlie  severe  mid- 
winter. I  had  go^ie  to  lands  of  sun  and 
blue  sea,  called  to  a  distance  by  my  trade 
of  sailor. 

And  I  came  back  yesterday  on  a  vaca- 
tion of  a  few  hours  in  weather  that  had 
already  become  spring-like,  very  luminous, 
very  soft.  I  was  almost  saddened  by  the 
perfect  restoi'ation  of  order  everywhere,  by 
the  careless  tranquillity  of  things.  Time 
has  passed,  and  ihe  image  of  Aunt  Claire 
has  faded  in  the  distance. 

A  warm  sun,  transient  and  unexpected, 
has  begun  once  again  to  brighten  our  court- 
yard, which  I  had  left  still  in  the  grip  of 
tliat  black  cold,  with  the  green  branches 
tliat  had  formed  part  of  the  funeral  pyre 
still  heaped  up  together  in  a  corner  under 
the  snow.  Several  of  our  plants  are  dead 
— some  of  those  which  Aurt  Claire  had 
tended  herself,  and  which  I    loved  because 


AtfNT  CLAIRE  LEAVES  VS.  235 

of  her ;  they  have  been  replaced  by  others 
which  had  been  brought  thither  in  haste 
and  in  expectation  of  my  arrival.  Even  in 
this  courtyard,  which  had  been  her  domain, 
the  trace  of  her  beneficient  and  sweet  stay 
on  earth  will  soon  have  disappeared. 

We  all  go  together  to  the  cemeteiy 
to  pay  a  visit  to  the  vault  where  she 
sleeps,  now  walled  in  with  stones.  A 
spring  sun  shines  on  our  black  clothes. 
The  cemetery  itself  is  shaking  oif  the  long 
torpor  of  this  long  and  fatal  winter.  The 
plants,  whose  roots  touch  the  dead,  already 
are  gently  putting  forth  their  buds,  and 
are  going  to  live  again. 

AVe  feel  as  though  we  came  to  see  a 
tomb  which  had  become  already  old  and 
begun  to  be  forgotten. 

On  our  return  I  go  into  her  room ;  the 
windows  are  opened  to  the  soft  breeze  of 
spring,  and  there  reigns  in  it  a  perfect  order : 
perfect  order   prevails,    and  with  it  there 


236     THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

would  seem  to  be  almost  an  air  of  gayety, 
an  unexpected  return,  as  it  were,  to  younger 
days.  In  her  place  there  is  substituted  a 
large  portrait,  just  recently  painted,  wliich 
has  caught  slightly  her  expression  and  her 
sweet  smile,  but  that  image  framed  in  this 
gold  that  looks  too  new  now,  but  will  by 
and  by  fade,  will  not  tell  my  son  Samuel 
whom  it  represents  unless  he  is  told  all 
about  her.  It  will  become,  after  I  have 
gone,  just  the  same  as  those  other  portraits 
of  ancestors,  a  mere  commonplace  thing, 
which  nobody  knows  and  at  which  one 
scarcely  looks. 

I  open  her  large  wardrobe.  There  are  the 
little  things  which  she  used  to  handle  every 
day,  which  have  been  arranged  with  religi- 
ous care  by  my  mother,  who  has  put  them  in 
an  order  that  is  not  to  be  interfered  with ; 
behind  some  little  boxes,  of  a  make  that 
has  gone  out  of  fashion,  to  which  Aunt 
Claire  was  much  attached,  I  suddenly 
come  upon  the  Ours  mix  Pralines  in  a 
comer.     All   these  things  will  remain  im- 


AUNT  CLAIRE  LEAVES   US.  237 

movable  on  these  shelves  that  are  not  to 
be  moved  again  in  this  room — wliicli  no- 
body will  occupy  again — until  that  hour 
of  all  profanation  which  I  cannot  fore- 
see, which  will  come  later  when  I  also  am 
dead. 

I  return  to  my  own  quarters — to  my 
study,  and,  with  my  elbow  on  the  sill  of 
the  open  window  and  with  an  Oriental 
cigarette  between  my  lips,  I  look,  as  I  have 
for  so  many  years,  at  the  little  familiar 
street,  at  the  district  which  does  not 
change. 

At  all  times  I  have  dreamed  and  medi- 
tated much  at  this  same  window — especially 
in  the  evenings  of  June  ;  and  I  would  wish 
that  they  should  not  change,  until  my 
death,  the  aspect  of  the  old  roofs  of  the 
neighborhood.  I  feel  attached  to  them, 
although  perhaps  they  would  appear  com- 
monplace and  ordinaiy  to  those  to  whom 
they  bring  no  memories.  And  eveiy  time 
that  I  have  stayed  in  my  own  home  during 


S38     THE  noOK  OP  PITT  AND  OV  DEATH. 

all  the  different  phases  of  my  life  which 
have  succeeded  each  other  with  such  rapid- 
ity, I  have  passed  moments  of  reverie 
there,  moments  of  nostalgia  and  of  I'egret 
for  the  thousand  and  one  scenes  in  the 
East  or  elsewhere.  And,  conversely,  when 
elsewhere  I  have  in  the  midst  of  these  mi- 
rages longed  now  and  then  for  this  window. 
Little  Samuel,  my  son,  has  begun  to  come 
there  also,  supported  on  the  neck  of  his 
nurse  ;  more  than  once  he  has  cast  his  little 
eye,  surprised  and  half-conscious,  on  the 
neighborhood.  After  me,  perhaps,  he  will 
also  love  this  place  in  his  turn. 

The  weather  is  deliciously  fine  to-day. 
The  sky  is  blue,  the  breeze  passes  over  my 
head,  warm  as  a  breeze  in  April.  Every- 
where there  is  a  feeling  of  spring.  Already 
may  be  heard  the  pipes  of  the  goat-herds 
who  have  Just  arrived  from  the  Pyrenees. 
There,  too,  are  those  three  wandering  musi- 
cians, who  every  summer  reappear  and 
play  once  more  the  same  airs.  There  they 
are,  installed  at  their  old  post  on  the  pave- 


ATTNT  CLAIRE  LEAVES   US.  239 

ment  iu  front,  to  begin  all  over  again  the 
music  of  tlie  beautiful  seasons  tliat  liave 
now  for  ever  passed  away.  For  tlie 
moment  I  allow  myself  to  be  carried  away 
just  a  little  by  all  this  gayety,  and  by  the 
thought  of  all  the  sunny  morrows  which 
are  still  ahead  of  me  and  of  that  life  which 
still  lies  before  me. 

My  eyes  now  wander  to  the  window 
which  is  nearest  mine,  one  of  those  in  the 
apartments  of  Aunt  Claire.  It  is  half- 
closed,  and  I  see  through  the  opening  the 
small  and  perfumed  head  of  a  vigorous 
bud  of  mignonette  push  its  way  through 
the  tiles  of  the  window  sill.  (Mignonette 
was  the  favorite  flower  of  Aunt  Claire. 
I  used  to  see  it  in  her  room  almost  every 
season,  and  mamma  doubtless  will  preserve 
her  traditions  faithfully  in  this  as  if  she 
were  still  there.) 

For  the  last  two  or  three  summers  she 
used  to  sit  often  behind  her  shutters,  half 
open,  having  given  up  a  little — from  sheer 
weakness — all  those  tasks  which  had  occu- 


240     THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

pied  lier  for  more  than  half  a  century. 
We  used  to  see  her  there  quite  close  to  us, 
she  bade  us  "good-day,"  with  a  smile 
above  her  eternal  mignonette  flowers,  at 
the  moment  in  which  Leo  and  I  left  our 
tasks,  he  his  mathematical  books,  I  the 
sheets  of  paper  on  which  I  was  striving  to 
fix  the  transient  things  which  time  carries 
away.  Both  of  us  would  lean  out  of  the 
window,  amusing  ourselves  by  looking 
down  on  the  passers-by,  on  the  contem- 
plative cats  on  the  roofs,  and  the  martins 
whirling  in  the  air. 

I  confess  that  I  am  attached  to  my 
passers-by  also,  and  the  longer  they  are  in 
our  neighborhood  the  deeper  is  my  attach- 
ment. I  love  not  only  those  who  now  and 
again  lift  their  heads  to  give  me  the  salute 
of  acquaintance,  but  also  those  who  cast 
upon  me  an  ill-natured  and  foolish  look, 
nourishing  some  little  secret  grudge  against 
me.  Though  they  do  not  know  it,  these 
latter  form  a  part  of  the  surroundings  of 


AUNT  CLAIRE  LEAVES   US.  241 

my  home,  and,  if  needs  were,  I  should 
offer  a  bribe  to  Death  to  leave  them  a  little 
longer  near  me. 

No^v  I  look  to  where  Aunt  Claire  had 
her  rooms,  and  I  find  that  breeze  melan- 
choly which  charmed  me  just  a  while  ago. 
I  find  suddenly  the  sun  mournful  and  sad, 
and  this  motionless  serenity  of  the  air  fills 
me  with  anguish.  These  half-opened 
shutters  from  which  I  shall  never,  never 
again  see  her  cap  of  black  lace  and  her 
white  locks  of  hair;  this  bud  of  mignon- 
ette which  is  there  all  alone,  showing  me 
innocently  its  pretty  head — no,  I  cannot 
any  longer  look  at  these  things,  and  I  close 
my  window  quickly  that  I  may  weep  like 
a  little  child. 

Perhaps,  mon  Dieu,  it  is  the  last  time 
the  sorrow  for  Aunt  Claife  will  come  to 
me  with  this  intensity  and  in  the  special 
form  that  brings  tears.  For  everything  in 
this   world  grows   less   acute;  eveiything 


242     THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

becomes  customary  and  is  forgotten.  For 
a  veil  of  mist,  ashes,  I  know  not  what,  is 
thrown  as  though  in  haste  and  suddenly 
across  our  memory  of  beings  that  have  re- 
turned into  eternal  nothingness. 


THE  SLAUGHTER  OF  AN  OX 
AT  SEA. 


THE  SLAUGHTER  OF  AN  OX 
AT    SEA. 

We  were  in  the  midst  of  tlie  Indian 
Ocean  on  a  sad  evening  in  whicli  the  wind 
is  beginning  to  groan.  Two  jDoor  oxen 
remained  to  us  of  the  twelve  that  we  had 
taken  in  at  Singapore  to  eat  on  the  way. 
These  had  been  spared  because  the  voyage 
was  being  prolonged  owing  to  the  contrary 
winds  of  the  monsoon. 

Two  poor  oxen,  wasted,  thin,  pitiable, 
their  hides  already  shabby  and  worn 
through  by  the  bones  shaken  by  the  rock- 
ing of  the  vessel.  For  many  days  they  had 
sailed  over  this  miserable  sea — their  backs 
turned  to  their  old  pasture  lands  far  away, 
where  nobody  would  ever  take  them  again ; 
fastened  tightly  to  each  other  by  a  rope 
round  theii'  horns,  and  their  heads  lowered 

245 


246     THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEA  TH. 

with  resignation  each  time  that  a  wave 
came  to  inundate  their  bodies  with  a  new 
chilling  bath.  With  mournful  eyes  they 
chewed  together  some  bad  hay,  wet  with 
the  salt  of  the  sea;  animals  condemned  to 
death,  doomed  from  the  beginning  and 
without  hope  of  mercy,  but  destined  to 
suffer  still  for  a  long  time  before  death ;  to 
suffer  from  the  cold,  the  shock  of  the 
vessel,  from  the  constant  wetting,  from  the 
numbness,  and  from  fear. 

The  evening  of  which  I  speak  was 
especially  somber.  At  sea  there  are  many 
such  evenings,  when  ugly  -and  livid  fogs 
spread  themselves  over  the  horizon,  as  the 
light  is  fading,  when  the  wind  begins  to 
swell  its  voice,  and  the  night  announces 
beforehand  that  it  is  going  to  be  unsafe. 
At  such  hours,  feeling  one's  self  isolated  in 
the  midst  of  these  infinite  waters,  one  is 
seized  with  a  vague  anguish  which  the 
twilight  never  brings  on  land,  even  in  the 
most  funereal  places.  And  these  two  poor 
oxen,  children   of    the   meadow  and   the 


THE  SLA  UQHTER  OF  AN  OX  AT  SEA.     247 

pasture,  alone,  more  completely  exiles  than 
we  men,  in  these  moving  deserts,  and  un- 
buoyed  by  hope  as  we  are,  must,  in  spite 
of  theii*  rudimentary  intelligence,  suffer 
after  their  fashion  from  the  depression  of 
such  scenes ;  although  they  see  only  con- 
fusedly the  image  of  their  approaching 
death. 

Yet  with  the  slo\vness  of  the  invalided, 
their  large  and  dim  eyes  remained  fixed  on 
these  sinister  distances  in  the  sea.  One  by 
one  their  companions  had  been  slaughtered 
on  these  planks  beside  them.  For  two 
weeks,  then,  they  had  lived  together,  drawn 
toward  each  other  by  the  solitude,  sup- 
porting each  other  in  the  rocking  of  the 
vessel,  and  in  their  friendship  rubbing  their 
horns  together.  And  now  the  person  who 
is  charged  with  the  supply  of  provisions, 
him  whom  on  board  vessels  we  call  the 
tnaltre-commis^  came  toward  me  on  the 
bridge  to  tell  me,  in  the  usual  phrase, 
"Captain,  a  cow  is  going  to  be  killed." 
The   devil   take   him,  say   I,  this  niaitre- 


248     THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

commis!  I  receive  him  very  badly, 
althougli  assuredly  he  was  not  to  blame; 
but  in  truth  I  had  had  no  luck  from  the 
beginning  of  this  voyage;  it  was  always 
during  my  watch  that  the  time  came  for 
the  slaughter  of  the  oxen.  Besides  it  takes 
place  immediately  below  the  bridge  on 
which  we  walk,  and  it  is  useless  to  turn 
away  one's  eyes,  to  think  of  other  things, 
to  look  abroad  on  the  waters ;  you  cannot 
avoid  hearing  the  stroke  of  the  ax  between 
the  horns,  and  in  the  center  of  the  poor 
forehead,  bound  very  low  to  a  ring  on  the 
deck.  And  then  comes  the  noise  of  the 
animal  as  he  falls  down  on  the  deck,  with 
a  rattling  of  his  bones.  Soon  after  he  is' 
quickly  cut  to  pieces.  A  horrible  and 
musty  smell  comes  from  his  entrails  when 
they  are  opened,  and,  all  around,  the  deck 
of  the  vessel,  ordinarily  so  clean,  is  soiled 
by  blood  and  unclean  things. 

And  now  it  was  the  moment  to  slaughter 
the  ox.  Some  sailors  formed  a  circle  around 
the  ring  b^  which  it  was  to  be  tied  for  eX' 


THE  SLA  UOHTER  OF  AN  OX  AT  SEA.      249 

edition ;  and  of  the  two  that  remain  they 
take  the  more  infirm,  one  who  was  ah'eady 
dying,  and  who  allowed  itself  to  be  carried 
away  without  resistance. 

Then  the  other  turned  slowly  its  head  to 
follow  it  with  melancholy  eyes,  and  seeing 
that  they  brought  it  toward  the  same  fatal 
spot  where  all  its  brothers  had  fallen,  it 
understood.  A  ray  of  light  could  be  seen 
in  the  poor  dej)ressed  forehead  of  this 
chewing  animal,  and  it  uttered  a  low  sound 
of  distress.  The  cry  of  that  ox  was  one  of 
the  saddest  sounds  that  ever  made  me  groan, 
and  at  the  same  time  was  one  of  the  most 
mysterious  things  that  I  had  ev^er  heard. 
There  was  in  it  a  dim  reproach  against  all 
men,  and  then  a  kind  of  resignation  that 
was  deeply  moving,  something  so  restrained 
and  subdued,  as  though  it  felt  how  useless 
was  its  groan  of  despair,  and  that  its  cry 
would  be  heard  by  nobody.  With  the 
consciousness  of  its  universal  abandonment, 
it  appeared  to  say,  "  Ah,  yes,  the  inevitable 
hour  has  come  for  him  who  was  my  last 


250     THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

brother,  who  came  with  me  from  la-has^ 
from  the  country  where  we  ran  on  the 
grass — and  my  turn  will  come  soon,  and 
not  another  being  in  the  world  will  have 
pity  on  me  any  more  than  on  him." 

Ah  !  yes,  I  did  have  pity  on  him  ;  I  ex- 
perienced a  sense  of  j)ity,  indeed,  that  was 
almost  quixotic,  and  an  impulse  came  upon 
me  to  go  and  take  hold  of  his  head  and, 
feeble  and  revolting  though  it  was,  to  sup- 
port it  on  my  breast,  since  that  is  one  of 
the  physical  methods  most  natural  to  us 
when  we  wish  to  soothe  with  the  sense  of 
protection  those  who  suif er  or  are  about  to 
die. 

But,  in  fact,  it  did  not  receive  any  help 
from  anybody,  for  even  I,  who  had  felt 
the  supreme  distress  of  its  cry,  remained 
stiif  and  impassive  in  my  place,  merely 
turning  away  my  eyes.  Because  an  animal 
is  in  despair  one  cannot  change  the  direc- 
tion of  a  ship  and  prevent  three  hundred 
men  from  eating  their  rations  of  fresh 
meat.     A  man  who  should  even  think  of 


THE  SLA  XTGHTER  OF  AN  OX  AT  SEA.     251 

sucli  a  thing  for  a  minute  would  pass  for  a 
lunatic.    . 

Nevertlieless  a  little  cabin-boy,  who  per- 
haps also  was  alone  in  the  world  and  had 
never  found  any  pity,  had  heard  the  ap- 
peal and  so  understood  it  in  the  depths  of 
his  soul  as  I  had.  He  approached  the  ox 
quite  gently,  and  softly  and  gently  began 
to  rub  its  nose.  If  he  had  only  thought  he 
might  have  been  able  to  predict  to  him 
thus :  "  All  these  will  die  also — these  who 
are  going  to  eat  you  to-morrow ;  all,  even 
the  strongest  and  the  youngest,  and  per- 
haps ithe  terrible  hour  will  be  still  more 
cruel  for  them  than  for  you,  with  suifering 
more  prolonged.  Perhaps  then  they 
would  prefer  the  stroke  of  the  ax  right  in 
the  midst  of  their  foreheads."  The  animal 
returned  to  him  his  caress,  looking  at  him 
with  affectionate  eyes,  and  licking  his 
hands.  But  it  was  all  over.  The  ray  of 
light  which  had  penetrated  his  low  and 
narrow  foi'ehead  went  out  in  the  sinister 
immensity  in  which  the  ship  carried  him, 


252     THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

always  faster,  in  the  cold  fog,  in  the  twi- 
light announcing  the  bad  night  ;  by  the 
body  of  his  companion,  who  was  now  noth- 
ing but  a  shapeless  mass  of  meat  hung  on 
hooks,  he  began  once  more  to  chew  quietly 
— did  this  poor  ox.  His  brief  intelligence 
did  not  go  further  ;  he  thought  of  nothing ; 
he  no  longer  remembered  anything. 


THE  IDYL  OF  AN  OLD 
COUPLE. 


THE   IDYL   OF   AN   OLD 
COUPLE. 

Toto-San  and  Kaka-San  were  husband 
and  wife.  They  were  old — so  old ;  every- 
body had  always  known  them ;  the  oldest 
people  in  Nagasaki  did  not  even  remember 
•the  time  when  they  had  seen  them  young. 
They  begged  in  the  streets.  Toto-San, 
who  was  blind,  dragged  after  him  in  a  sort 
of  small  bath-chair  Kaka-San,  who  was 
paralyzed.  Formerly  they  were  known  as 
Hato-San  and  Gume-San  (Monsieur  Pigeon 
and  Madame  Prune),  but  the  people  no 
longer  remembered  this.  In  the  Japanese 
language  Toto  and  Kata  are  very  soft  words 
which  signify  "  father"  and  "  mother  "  in 
the  mouths  of  children.  Doubtless  because 
of  their  great  age,  everybody  called  them 
so ;  and  in  this  land  of  excessive  politeness 

255 


256     THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

they  added  to  these  familiar  names  the  word 
"  San,"  whicli  is  a  word  of  courtesy  like 
monsieur  and  madame  (^Monsieur  Papa  and 
Madame  Maman).  Even  the  smallest  of 
Japanese  babies  do  not  neglect  these  terms 
of  politeness.  Their  method  of  begging 
was  discreet  and  comme  ilfavt  They  did 
not  harass  the  passers-by  with  prayers,  but 
held  out  their  hands  simply  and  without 
saying  anything — poor  hands  wrinkled  and 
abeady  like  those  of  a  mummy.  The  peo- 
ple gave  them  rice,  heads  of  fish,  old  soups. 
Very  small,  like  all  Japanese  women,  Kaka- 
San  appeared  reduced  almost  to  nothing  in 
this  chair,  in  which  her  lower  limbs,  almost 
dead,  had  been  dried  up  and  huddled  to- 
gether for  so  many  years.  Her  carriage 
was  ])adly  hung ;  and  thus  it  came  to  be 
much  jolted  in  the  course  of  its  jounaeys 
through  the  city.  He  did  not  walk  very 
quickly,  her  poor  husband,  and  he  was  so 
full  of  care  and  precaution.  She  guided 
him  with  her  voice,  and  he,  attentive,  his 
ear  pricked  up,  went  on  his  way,  like  the 


THE  IDYL  OF  AN  OLD  COUPLE.        257 

wandering  Jew,  in  Lis  everlasting  darkness, 
the  leather  rein  thrown  over  his  shonlder  and 
striking  the  ground  with  a  bamboo  cane  to 
direct  his  steps. 

They  ^vent  to  all  the  religious  festivals 
celebrated  in  the  temples.  Under  the 
great  black  cedars,  whicli  shade  the  sacred 
meadows,  at  the  foot  of  some  old  monster 
in  granite,  they  installed  themselves  at  an 
early  hour  before  the  arrival  of  the  earliest 
devotees,  and  so  long  as  the  pilgrimage 
lasted,  many  of  the  passers-by  stopped  at 
their  side.  They  were  young  gii'ls  with  the 
faces  of  dolls,  and  little  eyes  like  cats, 
dragging  after  them  their  high  boots  of 
wood ;  Japanese  children,  veiy  funny  in 
their  long  parti-colored  dresses,  arriving  in 
bands  to  pay  their  devotions  and  holding 
each  other  by  their  hands ;  beautiful  sim- 
pering ladies,  wdth  complicated  chignons 
going  to  the  pagoda  to  pray  and  to  laugh ; 
peasants  with  long  hair.  Bonzes  or  mer- 
chants, every  imaginable  description  of  these 
gay  little  doll-people  passed   before  Kaka- 


258     THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

San,  who  still  was  able  to  see  them,  and 
Toto-San,  wlio  was  not.  They  always  gave 
them  a  kind  look,  and  sometimes  somebody 
would  detach  himself  from  a  group  to  give 
them  some  alms.'  Sometimes  even  they 
made  them  bows,  quite  as  if  they  were  peo- 
ple of  quality — so  well  were  they  known, 
and  so  polite  is  everybody  in  this  Empire. 

In  those  days  it  often  happened  that 
they  could  smile  at  the  feast  when  the 
weather  was  fine  and  the  breeze  soft,  when 
the  sorrows  of  old  age  slumbered  a  little  in 
their  exhausted  limbs.  Kaka-San,  excited 
by  the  tumult  of  the  laughing  and  light 
voices,  began  to  simper  like  the  passing 
ladies,  playing  with  her  poor  fan  of  paper, 
assuming  the  air  of  one  who  still  had 
something  to  say  to  life,  and  who  inter- 
ested herself  like  other  people  in  the 
amusing   things   of   this   world. 

But  when  evening  came,  bringing  dark- 
ness and  chill  under  the  cedars,  when 
there  was  everywhere  a  sense  of  religious 
horror  and  mystery  around  the  temples,  in 


THE  IDYL   OF  AN  OLD   COUPLE.         259 

tlie  alleys  lined  witli  monsters,  the  old 
couple  sank  back  on  themselves.  It 
seemed  as  if  the  fatigues  of  the  day  had 
gnawed  them  fi'om  within ;  their  Amnkles 
became  deeper,  their  skin  hung  more 
loosely ;  their  faces  expressed  only  their 
frightful  misery  and  the  hideous  idea  of 
the  nearness  of  death. 

Meantime,  thousands  of  lamps  were  lit 
around  them  in  the  black  branches ;  and 
the  devout  held  their  places  on  the  steps 
of  the  temples.  The  hum  of  a  gayety,  at 
once  fiivolous  and  strange,  came  from  this 
crowd,  filled  the  avenues  and  the  holy 
vaults,  in  sharp  contrast  with  the  sinister 
grin  of  the  immobile  monsters  who  guard 
the  gods — with  the  frightful  and  unknown 
symbols — with  the  vague  terrors  of  the 
night.  The  feast  was  prolonged  till  day- 
light, and  seemed  an  immense  irony  to  the 
spints  of  heaven  rather  then  an  act  of 
adoration ;  but  an  irony  that  had  no 
bitterness,  that  was  child-like,  amiable, 
and,  above  all  things,  irresistibly  joyous. 


260     THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

But  this  aft'ected  not  the  old  couple. 
With  the  setting  of  the  sun  there  was 
nothing  which  could  animate  any  longer 
those  human  wrecks.  They  became  sin- 
ister to  look  at;  huddled  up,  apart  from 
everybody  else,  like  sick  pariahs  or  old 
monkeys,  worn  out  and  done  for,  eating 
in  a  corner  their  poor  little  alms-offerings. 
At  this  moment  were  they  disturbed  by 
something  profound  and  eternal,  else  why 
was  there  this  expression  of  anguish  on 
their  death-masks  ?  .  Who  knows  what 
passed  in  their  old  Japanese  heads  ?  Per- 
haps nothing  at  all.  They  struggled  simply 
to  keep  on  living;  they  ate  with  their 
little  chop-sticks,  helping  each  other  ten- 
derly. They  covered  each  other  up  so  as 
not  to  get  cold  and  to  keep  the  dew  from 
penetrating  to  their  bones.  They  took 
care  of  each  other  as  much  as  they  could 
with  the  simple  desire  of  being  alive  the 
next  day,  and  of  recommencing  theii"  old 
wandering  promenade,  the  one  rolling  the 
other's  chair.     In  the  little  chair  Kaka-San 


THE  IDYL   OF  AN  OLD  COUPLE.        261 

kept  all  tlieir  household  effects,  broken 
dishes  of  blue  porcelain  for  then*  rice,  little 
cups  to  drink  theii'  tea,  and  lanterns  of  red 
paper  which  they  lit  at  night. 

Once  eveiy  week,  Kaka-San's  hau*  was 
carefully  combed  and  dressed  by  her 
beloved  husband.  Her  arras  she  could 
not  quite  raise  high  enough  to  fix  her 
Japanese  chignon,  and  Toto-San  had 
learned  to  do  it  instead.  Trembling  and 
fumbling,  he  caressed  the  poor  old  head, 
which  allowed  itself  to  be  stroked  with 
coquettish  abandon,  and  the  whole  thing 
recalled — except  that  it  was  sadder — the 
toilette  which  the  humbugs  help  each 
other  to  make.  Her  hair  was  thin ;  and 
Toto-San  did  not  find  much  to  comb  on 
her  poor  yellow  parchment,  wrinkled  like 
the  skin  of  an  apple  in  winter.  He  suc- 
ceeded, however,  in  fixing  up  her  hair  in 
puifs,  after  the  Japanese  fashion  :  and  she, 
deeply  interested  in  the  operation,  fol- 
lowed it  vrith  her  eyes  in  a  broken  piece 
of  a  miiTor,  with :  "  A  little  higher,  Toto- 


262     THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

San  ! "  "A  little  more  to  the  right ! "  "  A 
little  to  the  left."  In  the  end,  when  he 
had  stuck  two  long  pins  in,  which  gave  to 
the  coiffure  its  finishing  touch,  Kaka-San 
seemed  to  regain  the  air  of  a  genteel  grand- 
mother, a  profile  like  that  of  a  well-bred 
woman. 

They  also  went  through  their  ablutions 
conscientiously :  for  they  are  very  clean  in 
Japan. 

And  when  they  had  finished  these  ablu- 
tions once  more,  which  had  been  done  so 
often  already  during  so  many  years  ;  when 
they  had  completed  that  toilette,  which 
the  approach  of  death  rendered  less  grate- 
ful from  day  to  day — did  they  feel  them- 
selves vivified  by  the  pure  and  cold  water  ? 
did  they  experience  a  little  more  comfort 
in  the  freshness  of  the  morning  ? 

Ah  !  what  a  depth  of  wretchedness  was 
theirs !  After  each  night,  to  wake  up 
both  more  infirm,  more  depressed,  more 
shaky,  and  in  spite  of  it  all,  to  wish  obstin- 
ately to  live  OP,  to  display  their  decrepi- 


THE  IDYL   OF  AN  OLD  COUPLE.         263 

tude  to  the  sun,  and  to  set  out  in  the  same 
eternal  promenade  in  their  bath-chair ;  with 
the  same  long  pauses,  the  same  creaks  of 
the  wood,  the  same  joltings,  the  same 
fatigue  ;  to  pass  even  through  the  streets, 
into  the  suburbs,  through  the  valleys,  even 
to  the  distant  couutiy  where  a  festival  was 
announced  in  some  temple  in  the  woods. 

It  was  in  tlie  fields  one  morning,  at  the 
crossing  of  two  of  the  E.o}'al  roads,  that 
death  suddenly  caught  old  Kaka-San. 
It  was  a  beautifid  morning  in  April ;  the 
sun  was  shining  brightly,  and  the  gi-ass 
was  very  green.  In  the  island  of  Kiu-Siu 
the  spring  is  a  little  warmer  than  ours, 
comes  earlier,  and  already  everything  was 
resplendent  in  the  fertile  fields.  The  two 
roads  crossed  each  other  in  the  midst  of 
the  fields ;  all  around  was  the  rice-crop 
glistening  under  the  light  breeze  in  innum- 
erable changes  of  color.  The  air  was  filled 
with  the  music  of  the  grasshoppers,  which 
in  Japan  are  loud  in  their  buzz.  At  this 
spot  there  were  about  ten  tombs  in  the 


2G4     THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

grass,  under  a  bunch  of  large  and  isolated 
cedars.  Square  stone  pillars,  or  ancient 
Budhas,  in  granite,  were  set  up  in  the  cups 
of  the  lotus.  Beyond  the  fields  of  rice, 
you  saw  the  woods,  not  uWike  our  wood 
of  oak.  But  here  and  there  were  white 
or  rose-colored  clumps,  which  were  the 
camelias  in  flower,  and  the  light  foliage  of 
the  bamboos.  Then  farther  off  were  the 
mountains,  resembling  small  domes  with 
little  cupolas,  forming  against  the  sky 
shapes  that  seemed  artificial,  yet  very 
agreeable. 

It  was  in  the  midst  of  this  region  of 
calm  and  vei'dure  that  the  chair  of  Kaka- 
San  stopped,  and  for  a  halt  that  was  to  be 
its  last.  Peasants,  men  and  women,  dressed 
in  their  long  dresses  of  dark  blue  cotton 
with  pagoda  sleeves — about  twenty  good 
little  Japanese  souls — hurried  to  the  bath- 
chair  where  the  old  dying  woman  was 
convulsively  twisting  her  old  arms.  She 
had  had  a  stroke  quite  suddenly  while 
being   drawn    along    by    Toto-San   on   a 


;    THE  IDYL  OF  AN  OLD   COUPLE.        265 

pilgrimage  to  tlie  temple  of  the  goddess 
Kwauon. 

They,  good  souls,  did  their  best,  at- 
tracted by  sympathy  as  much  as  by  curios- 
ity, to  help  the  old  woman.  They  were 
for  the  most  part  people  who,  like  her, 
were  making  their  way  to  the  feast  of 
of  Kwanon,  the  Goddess  of  Beauty.  Poor 
Kaka-San !  They  attempted  to  restore  her 
with  a  cordial  made  of  rice  brandy ;  they 
rubbed  the  pit  of  her  stomach  with  aro- 
matic herbs,  and  bathed  the  back  of  her 
neck  with  the  fresh  water  of  a  stream. 
Toto-San  touched  her  quite  gently,  caressed 
her  timidly,  not  knowing  what  to  do,  em- 
barrassing the  others  with  his  awkward 
blind  movements,  and  trembling  with 
anguish  in   all   his   limbs. 

Finally,  they  made  her  swallow,  in 
small  pellets,  pieces  of  paper  which  con- 
tained efficacious  prayers  written  on  them 
by  the  Bonzes,  and  which  a  helpful  woman 
had  consented  to  take  from  the  lining  in 
her  own  sleeves.     Labor  in  vain !  for  the 


2CG     THE  BOOK  OF  PITY  AND  OF  DEATH. 

hour  had  struck.  Death  was  there,  invisi- 
ble, laughing  in  the  face  of  all  these  good 
Japanese,  and  holding  the  old  woman 
tight   in   his   secure   hands. 

A  last  painful  convulsion  and  Kaka-San 
was  dead.  Her  mouth  lay  open,  her  body- 
all  on  one  side,  half  fallen  out  of  the  chair, 
and  her  arms  hanging  like  the  doll  of  a 
poor  Punch  and  Judy  show,  which  is  al- 
lowed to  rest  at  the  close  of  the  perform- 
ance. 

This  little  shaded  cemetery,  before  which 
the  final  scene  had  taken  place,  seemed  to 
be  indicated  by  the  Spirits  themselves,  and 
even  to  have  been  chosen  by  the  dead 
woman  herself.  They  made  no  delay. 
They  hired  some  coolies  who  were  passing, 
and  very  quickly  they  began  to  dig  out  the 
earth.  Everybody  was  in  a  hurry,  not 
wishing  to  miss  the  pilgrimage  nor  to  leave 
this  poor  old  thing  without  burial — the 
more  so  as  the  day  promised  to  be  very  hot, 
and  already  some  ugly  flies  were  gathering 
round.     In   half  an  hour    the  grave   was 


THE  IDYL  OF  AN  OLD  COUPLE.         26 Y 

ready.  They  took  the  old  woman  from 
her  chair,  lifting  her  by  the  shoulders,  and 
placed  her  in  the  earth,  seated  as  she  had 
always  been,  her  loAver  limbs  huddled  to- 
gether as  they  had  been  in  life — like  one 
of  those  dried-up  monkeys  which  sports- 
men meet  sometimes  at  the  foot  of  trees  in 
the  forest.  Toto-San  tried  to  do  everything 
himself,  no  longer  in  his  right  senses,  and 
hindering  the  coolies,  who  have  not  sensi- 
tive hearts,  and  who  hustled  him  about. 
He  groaned  like  a  little  child,  and  tears  ran 
from  his  eyes  without  exciting  any  atten- 
tion. He  tried  to  find  out  if  at  least  her 
hair  was  properly  combed  to  present  her- 
self in  the  eternal  dwellings,  if  the  bows  of 
her  hair  were  in  order,  and  he  wished  to 
replace  the  large  pins  in  her  head-dress  be- 
fore they  threw  the  earth  over  her. 

They  heard  a  slight  groaning  in  the 
foliage;  it  was  the  spirits  of  Kaka-San's 
ancestors  who  had  come  to  receive  her  on 
her  entrance  into  the  Country  of  Shadows. 


268     THE  BOOK  OF  PITT  AND  OF  DEATH. 

Toto-San  yoked  himself  to  the  bath-chair 
once  more  ;  once  more  started  out,  from  the 
sheer  habit  of  walking  and  of  dragging 
something  after  him.  But  the  bath-chair 
was  empty  behind  him.  Separated  from 
her  who  had  been  his  friend,  adviser,  his  in- 
telligence and  his  eyes,  he  went  about  with- 
out thought,  a  mournful  wreck,  irrevocably 
alone  on  earth  to  the  very  end,  no  longer 
capable  of  collecting  his  thoughts,  moving 
timidly  without  object  and  without  hope, 
in  night  blacker  than  ever  before.  In  the 
meantime  the  grasshoppers  sang  at  their 
shrillest  in  the  grass,  which  darkened 
under  the  stars ;  and  whilst  real  night 
gathered  around  the  old  blind  man,  one 
heard  already  in  the  branches  the  same 
groanings  as  earlier  while  the  burial  was 
taking  place.  They  were  the  murmurs  of 
the  Spirits  who  •  'said :  "  Console  thyself, 
Toto-San.  Slueo'est's  in  a  very  sweet  sort  of 
annihilation  where  we  also  are  and  whither 
thou  com'st  soon.  She  is  no  longer  old  nor 
tottering,  for  she  is  dead ;  nor  ugly  to  look 


THE  IDYL   OF  AN  OLD   COUPLE.         269 

upon,  since  she  is  hidden  in  the  roots 
underground;  nor  disgusting  to  anybody, 
since  she  has  become  the  fertilizing  sub- 
stance of  the  land.  Her  body  will  be  puri- 
fied, permeating  the  earth  ;  Kaka-San  will 
live  again  in  beautiful  Japanese  plants ;  in 
the  branches  of  the  cedar,  in  the  beautiful 
camelias — in  the  bamboo." 


THE  END. 


f^. 


SOliTHCDi'»'X®"'"y  °*  California 

i™^  *S  T°"'^' '"  "»  library 
from  which  It  was  borrow^^ 


FEB  22 1995 


OCT  0  Z  Z001 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A    000  129  799    3 


Unive 

So 

L 


